﻿46 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 74 



Loggerhead Key, and 500 Ccrioii incanum Binney from Key West. 

 It is hoped that these two colonies will reproduce the conditions 

 existing in the hybrid colony on Newfound Harbor Key. It was 

 deemed wise to establish these colonies so that in the event a fire 

 should sweep over the Newfound Harbor colonies the experiments 

 might be continued in these additional places. The first of these 

 colonies was placed on the east end of Man Key in a small, low 

 meadow, which suggested the conditions in which the hybrid colony 

 on Newfound Harbor Key is existing. The other colony was estab- 

 lished on the north end of the little key east of Man Key, which may 

 be called Boy Key. 



Five hundred each of Ccrion viarcgis, Ccrion casablancac and 

 Ccrion incamun were sent to Dr. Montague Cooke at Honolulu for 

 colonization in the Hawaiian Islands. 



Thanks to the good offices of the Navy Department, Dr. Bartsch 

 was granted the use of a seaplane for a week. This was under the 

 command of Lieut. Noel Davis and Lieut. L. F. Noble. By means 

 of this plane Dr. Bartsch was able to fly at low altitude over 

 all the keys between Miami, and the Tortugas and West Cape 

 Sable and the eastern fringe of islands. During past years he had 

 spent as much time as was available in the exploration of the Florida 

 Keys, for the native Ccrion incammi in order to establish the present 

 extent of the colonies and to note what variation might exist in the 

 members thereof. These colonies are usually found in the grassy 

 plots on the inside of the keys and frequently in small grassy plots, 

 which are difficult to discover as one approaches these mangrove 

 fringed islands by water. To discover such colonies has usually 

 meant cutting through the mangrove fringe to reach the interior, 

 and there was danger of missing the smaller grassy plots. Flying 

 over these keys made it easily possible to see all favorable places 

 and to mark them on the charts. This will now permit a direct attack 

 upon the places in question and determine positively the extent of 

 existing colonies. Dr. Bartsch feels that at least a year of solid work 

 was saved by the four days during which these explorations were 

 made, to say nothing about saving an endless amount of punishment 

 by mosquitoes which usually infest these mangrove fringed islands. 



This aerial survey of the Bay of Florida also adduced the fact 

 that the milky condition of that stretch of water which has obtained 

 for some time and was probably responsible for the killing off of the 

 greatest part of the marine flora and fauna of the region, has sub- 

 sided, a state of affairs also noted in the Bahamas last year. It was 

 found that the water was clear everywhere and that the channels as 



