iSyo.] Scott on Birds at the Dry Tortugas. ^O"? 



ness. Middle Key is rather more than a mile west of East Key, 

 and in the same direction Hospital Key is about a mile from 

 Middle Key. Southwest of Hospital Key and a mile from it is 

 Garden Key, the centre of the group, and the most important of 

 the islands, though by no means the largest. It is nearly cir- 

 cular, and the walls of Fort Jefferson originally extended to the 

 water's edge entirely round the island. Now a considerable 

 point of land has been formed to the south, and a like point to 

 the north, outside of the walls by the action of the tide currents. 

 There are perhaps altogether outside the walls three acres of land 

 built up in this way in the past thirty years, and coarse grass, 

 beach ivy, and some low bushes, make these areas quite green and 

 agreeable to look at. The walls, which are about sixty feet high, 

 inclose an area of some thirteen acres, at least three of which are 

 occupied by buildings of a substantial character, and there is 

 a harbor light on the east wall. So that nearly ten acres inside 

 the fort are open space. Most of this is grown up with grass 

 and beach ivy, but in one corner of the enclosure is a little grove 

 of button-wood trees of perhaps half an acre in extent, and scat- 

 tered over the rest of the area are about forty cocoanut palms and 

 a few other button-wood trees. The trees in the grove and 

 the others scattered about are all of fairly good size, but none are 

 more than fifty feet high. There is no natural spring of fresh water 

 at present on this or any other island of the group, but on this 

 key are enormous cisterns of great capacity, which are replen- 

 ished from the roofs of buildings and the tops of the walls of the 

 fort. None of the water in these cisterns, however, is accessible 

 to birds, as all are carefully covered or are under ground. This 

 enclosure which I have thus briefly sketched was, I found, by far 

 the most attractive point for land birds and the list that will 

 presently be presented was practically made here. 



About three quarters of a mile to the westward and a little 

 south of Garden Key, is a small key, oval in shape and of perhaps 

 eight acres in area. It is known as Bird Key. Here the different 

 Gulls and Terns breed in myriads, those which are ground 

 nesters finding room between and tinder the bushes in which 

 the Noddies (Anous stolidus) build countless nests. But of this 

 more presently. 



Loggerhead Key, the extreme westerly island of the group, is a 

 long island similar in character to those already described, but 



