THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 

 vol. vii. July, 1890. No. 3. 



AN ACCOUNT OF FLAMINGOES {PHCENICOP- 

 TERUS RUBER) OBSERVED IN THE 

 VICINITY OF CAPE SABLE, FLORIDA. 



BY W. E. D. SCOTT. 



It was my good fortune, during February of the present year, 

 to have an opportunity of observing for several days the only 

 large flook of Flamingoes that still frequents the shores of the 

 extreme southern portion of Florida. Here, owing to the en- 

 vironment, these birds have remained comparatively undisturbed, 

 the region being very inaccessible, because of the absence of 

 fresh water and the great expanses of very shoal salt water, that 

 can only be navigated by the lightest draught skirls on favorable 

 tides ; hence very few hunters, and only those who have declared 

 the war of extermination on the Snowy Heron (Ardea candi- 

 dissima) and the White Egret (A. egretta), ever visit the locality 

 in question. The 'plume hunter' is in greater numbers and 

 more active than ever in South Florida, and there are absolutely 

 no Heron rookeries on the salt water bayous or on the outlying 

 keys ofLthe Gulf coast of Florida, from Anclote Keys to Cape 

 Sable. I have recently spent some three weeks in carefully 

 examining this coast, making in my small schooner from twenty- 

 five to sixty miles a day, and the only rookeries that I saw were 

 two on keys in Charlotte Harbor and three to the south of that 



