j3S7-] Scott on the Bird Rookeries of Southern Florida. 2 13 



Robin, and an occasional Jay added in turn their voices to wake 

 up the slumbers of bird life. 



That blue flash! What is it? Yes, there are the three 

 pretty objects of my curiosity, perched on the telegraph wires 

 where I last saw them, as quiet and easy of manner, as confiding 

 and thoughtless of danger, and even more beautiful than on the 

 evening before. I had killed hundreds of birds in my life : I had 

 never felt such an absorbing interest in one before; yet on no 

 occasion did I ever raise my gun with so much reluctance to take 

 a life. And when at length I held in my hand "a beautiful life- 

 less form, heard its two little friends, companions of its long 

 journey and dreary nights, whispering to one another, methought, 

 in mournful tones ; when I saw them rise in the air, uttering a 

 loud shrill note that sounded in my guilty ears like the curse of 

 betrayed innocence, and fly away never to be seen by me again, 

 my heart grew heavy, and I almost cursed that professional in- 

 credulity which drives an amateur into acts of needless cruelly. 

 And even now as I raise my eyes from the paper, and look upon 

 the graceful form, perched on a tiny stand, ornamented more 

 than usual as if to make some restitution for the destruction of 

 its life, the motionless presence recalls the events of that sunny 

 April morning, and stirs anew the feeling of regret and pain. 



THE PRESENT CONDITION OF SOME OF THE 



BIRD ROOKERIES OF THE GULF COAST 



OF FLORIDA. 



BY W. E. D. SCOTT. 



Second Paper. 



Saturday, May 8. We were up and away early. Sailed out of 

 the Nyakka River and along the northwest shores of Charlotte 

 Harbor as far as Cape Haze ; saw very few birds, and those only 

 the commoner species. 



From Cape Haze we crossed the harbor to the mouth of 

 Matlacha Pass, the wind blowing almost a gale from the west. 



