AMONG THE FLORIDA KEYS 
33 
benumbed. He will beware of handling these gentry here¬ 
after. 
Sailing on again, — this time south and east, — late in the 
evening we approached Man-o’-War Key and “ Bush.” 
The latter is a submerged mangrove islet, and both are old 
resorts of the Frigate or Man-o’-War Bird. Early in the 
morning we rowed and waded to each of them in the tender 
over the shallows and ” soap-flats.” In the vessel we could 
not approach them within half a mile. There were no ” Men- 
o’-War,” but a few Brown Pelicans and Ward’s Herons, and 
large numbers of Florida Cormorants were roosting upon 
the trees, though not breeding. The latter gave me a good 
snap-shot picture or two as a large band doubled past me, 
leaving the Man-o’-War Bush. I then waded to the islet, 
and, as I came around its end, surprised a considerable 
number of the cormorants roosting upon the trees on the 
other side. Some of them went flapping off low over the 
water ; others fell headlong into the sea as though they 
had fainted, but immediate!}" disappeared. In a few moments 
I saw them emerge well off from shore and take to wing. 
When I tried to ” land ” upon the ” Bush,” I found it a rather 
uncanny place. There was no land at all; the trees grew 
out of the water, which was knee deep. Ever}" branch was 
completely whitewashed with the excrement of the birds, but 
there was not a nest of an}" sort. Nor were the cormorants 
nesting upon the other and larger key near b}". But there 
I found a number of empty nests of the Ward’s Heron, which 
the young had probably left, all built in quite low trees. 
A pair of Bald Eagles which we saw had their huge nest of 
sticks in a rather large black mangrove, forty feet from the 
ground. It was now past their breeding-time. 
From here we started out for a long, hard beat to wind¬ 
ward, in a southeasterly direction, to reach a little settlement 
