Vol. XXXIII 



1915 



Kennard, On the Trail of the Ivory-bill. 11 



"pecker bird" as Tom called her, flew out from the swamp and 

 onto the side of a cabbage palm, only about sixty feet away from 

 me. She joined her mate, if mate he be, in my collection. On 

 dissection her ovaries showed no sign of the breeding season. 



We traveled about five miles across a very uninteresting country 

 of scattered "pine islands," "cypress heads," "strands," and broad 

 savannahs, until we came to a rocky "pine island," where we found 

 a poor camping site on a "burn," near a depression in which we 

 scraped a hole for some vile water. We camped here because it 

 was centrally located in a country over which we wished to hunt. 



The next day Peter and I, leaving Tom at camp, tramped to 

 Deep Lake about six miles, through more "pine islands" and 

 " cypress strands," across prairies which were still pretty wet and 

 on which we saw a few Killdeer. At Deep Lake there is a 

 hammock with a fine grove of several hundred acres owned by a 

 company, to the superintendent of which Mr. Walter G. Langford 

 of Fort Myers had very kindly given me letters, and in whose care 

 also I had had my mail sent. 



Here, while walking through the grove to the superintendent's 

 bungalow, we saw several flocks of turkeys scurrying away across 

 the aisles among the grapefruit trees, and counted over forty hens 

 and one gobbler. These birds, which are here protected, become 

 very tame and can be seen at almost any time from the piazza of 

 the house running about and feeding among the trees of the grove, 

 and the superintendent showed me one old cypress stub just back 

 of the cook's camp where a little earlier in the season about sev- 

 enty-five turkeys roosted nightly. 



Deep Lake is a beautiful little sheet of water entirely surrounded 

 by huge cypress draped with hanging moss. Several alligators 

 were sunning themselves upon the surface. Snake-birds were 

 flying rapidly overhead or perching with the Turkey Buzzards 

 who sat indolently on some of the overhanging boughs, while 

 numbers of Black Buzzards were soaring high above. Florida Gal- 

 linules were running or swimming about the edge of the lake, 

 several Swallow-tailed Kites were flying about the nearby grove, 

 Pileated and Red-bellied Woodpeckers seemed everywhere, and 

 Florida Crows and Fish Crows were calling from a neighboring stub. 



March 4th all hands were up early, preparing to start north for 



