AMONG THE FLORIDA KEYS 
37 
Despite all our efforts thus far, we had not found the Man- 
o’-War Birds actually breeding. So we were glad enough, 
after exploring this key, to run off half a dozen miles before 
the wind, which had now shifted to the west, to a small key 
which the guide said was a resort for immense numbers 
of this great bird. It was back under Key Largo, farther 
eastward than we had been. We came to anchor near sun¬ 
set, and at once I set out in the tender alone with the guide, 
the other ornithologists being busy and deciding to wait till 
morning. As we rowed through a narrow passage between 
the mangroves, a break in a long peninsula, there lay the 
little round green islet before us. First of all flew out some 
Florida Cormorants which were watching us from a little 
mangrove clump out in the water. Then, as we approached 
within long gunshot of the island, began a wonderful scene. 
Only a few Man-o’-War Birds had been visible, perched on 
the tree-tops, or flying and alighting ; but now they began 
to rise in scores, then in hundreds, yes, in thousands. The 
area of the island was hardly over an acre, and it seemed 
incredible that so many large birds could have found footing 
on the trees, for the Man-o’-War Bird has a spread of wing 
of nearly seven feet. I secured a picture of them as they 
began to rise from the island, and then a number as they 
soared overhead, the sky being fairly black with them in 
all directions, before they gradually drifted away to hover 
over another distant key. One only had to point a camera 
upward, almost anywhere, and snap, to get a plate full of the 
gracefully soaring birds. 
Then we rowed to the island. Several Reddish Egrets, the 
only ones we met with on the trip, started out from the man¬ 
groves close at hand, as did some Louisiana Herons. The 
island itself was entirely under water, and the trees were white 
with filth. But even here the elusive Frigates were not nest- 
