1887.] Scott on the Bird Rookeries of Southern Florida. IJ_I 



cash price for all plumes and fancy feathers. The force of resi- 

 dent buyers was increased during the winter of each year by 

 taxidermists (?), and buyers from the north, who came, in some 

 cases at least, provided to equip hunters with breech-loaders, 

 ammunition, and the most approved and latest devices for carry- 

 ing on the warfare. One man, who had come down in this way 

 for the past four years, was down south now, and regularly cm- 

 ployed from forty to sixty gunners, furnishing them with all 

 supplies and giving so much a plume or y?(7/ skin, for all the 

 birds most desirable. The prices, I was told, ranged from twenty 

 cents to two dollars and a half a skin, the average being about 

 forty cents apiece. 



All this I afterward fully corroborated, and met, personally, 

 the gentleman in question, to whom I shall have occasion later 

 to refer more at length. 



We staid at Hickory Bluff all night, as I had determined to ex- 

 plore the Myiakka River, which, I had always heard, was a bird 

 paradise, and I was told at Hickory Bluff that birds were still to 

 be found there in large numbers. 



Wednesday, May 5. Left Hickory Bluff early, but the wind 

 being very light and ahead, we were till nearly night reaching a 

 point about ten miles up the Myiakka River, which is near the 

 head of navigation for boats drawing two feet of water. The 

 rookeries described to us as being near the mouth of the river, 

 and where I was told birds had abounded the season before, I 

 found to be deserted ; only here and there did I see anything of 

 bird life, and in such cases only scattering individuals of the Flor- 

 ida Cormorant, White Ibis, and the commoner species of Herons. 

 Along the bank of the river, where we camped in the late after- 

 noon, were many Gray Kingbirds (Tyranm/s domiuicensis) , the 

 first I had seen on the cruise, and the first I had noted this 

 season. Going up the river we sailed close to three Ducks 

 which, as they rose out of the water, I determined were Aythya 

 marila nearctica. Near where we anchored were a number of 

 Sandhill Cranes {Grus mexicana) feeding and now and then 

 uttering their peculiar cry. A few Brown Pelicans and a single 

 Man-o'-War Bird complete the list of birds observed this day. 



It may be well to remark that the river is still salt at the high- 

 est point we reached, and that it is said to be brackish forty miles 

 from its mouth. 



