1SS7.] Scott on the Bird Rookeries of Southern Florida. 2 77 



Least Terns, Boat-tailed Blackbirds, Gray Kingbirds, and any 

 other small species that came in their way. The Least Terns 

 are particularly in demand in the hat business, and Mr. Batty 

 paid for such small birds as I have enumerated ten or fifteen 

 cents each in the flesh. All Owls, and particularly the Barred 

 Owl, are desirable. The feathers of these, as well as of Hawks, 

 are bleached by processes that Mr. Batty described to me, and 

 used for hats and other decoration. One of Mr. Batty's em- 

 ployes told me that they had left a party at the pass below, 

 where they were killing the same kinds of birds, and that Mr. 

 Batty was constantly purchasing and trading with native and 

 other gunners for plumes and round and flat skins of all the de- 

 sirable birds of the region. Not less than sixty men were work- 

 ing on the Gulf Coast for Mr. Batty in this way. From time to 

 time, as we were together, I picked up these facts, and I have 

 been careful to underrate rather than overestimate the destruction 

 that was going on from this single source. I have been able, 

 through parties working at various points between here and 

 Cedar Keys, to very fully substantiate these statements. 



Wednesday, May 26. This morning we started north again, 

 leaving the party of plume hunters still killing beach birds and 

 Least Terns at Little Gasparilla Pass. We went only a little 

 way outside, as it proved to be very rough, and it was desirable 

 to keep the material thus far collected in as good condition as 

 possible. We went in at Kettle Harbor Pass and up through 

 the same harbor already explored and described, stopping for 

 the afternoon and night at Stump Pass, the upper outlet of Kettle 

 Harbor. 



On this beach we again found many eggs of the loggerhead 

 turtle some of which — three or four out of the hundred obtained 

 — had two yolks. 



Thursday, May 27. Leaving Stump Pass early this morning 

 with a light head wind, we went sixteen miles up the coast to a 

 point known as Casey's Pass. As we left our anchorage I saw 

 Mr. Batty's schooner headed to the northward, but it did not 

 stop either at Casey's Pass or at Sarasota proper. At Casey's 

 Pass we met a very intelligent man, a Mr. Frank Higel, who 

 told me the same story of the extermination of birds that I had 

 already heard so many times. He said that several years before, 

 when he first came into this region, there were two large rook- 



