128 Nofes and Ne-vs. [Jammry 



The following extract from a private letter written to Mr. W. E. D. 

 Scott, gives interesting information respecting the destruction of Herons 

 and other birds for their plumes about Punta Rassa, Florida: — "From 

 personal observation in the immediate vicinity of Punta Rassa, I can 

 verify vour account of the great decrease in the numbers of the birds 

 since I went there in 1883. At that time it was a pleasure to sit on the 

 piazzas of the telegraph station and watch the long flights of Herons, Peli- 

 cans, and Cormorants pass up the harbor on the way to their roosting 

 places in the late afternoons; and at all times of the day some or all of 

 these birds were to be seen in greater or less numbers. Each and every one 

 of the small islands in the harbor within sight of our place was a nesting 

 and roosting place for the Herons, Pelicans, and Cormorants and other 

 birds at that time. In the spring of that year (1883) Isidore Cohn- 

 feld, of New York, sent an agent to Punta Rassa, a Mr. Kornfeld, with a 

 big lot of guns and ammunition, and he was the first one to inaugurate 

 the crusade against the birds after my arrival there. Kornfeld died at 

 Punta Rassa. but he was replaced by another agent, guns and ammuni- 

 tion were distributed liberally, and though the last agent, whose name I 

 have forgotten, did not do much business, yet the slaughter was carried 

 on from the start that had been made, and other parties reaped the bene- 

 fit of Cohnfeld's plant. Shultz and I bought something near two thou- 

 sand skins ourselves, a fact of which I have been rather ashamed ever 

 since, but they came to us mostly in the way of trade, and we did not have 

 any hunters in the field. That season satisfied me of the fate of the Herons 

 unless a halt was made in the slaughte--, and I talked against it, and 

 tried to persuade some of the hunters to stop their shooting, but it had no 

 effect. The usual answer was "others are doing it and I may as well get 

 my share": the same reason Johnson gave you. The following season, 

 and in fact every season since then, the crusade has been kept up. Batty 

 made his appearance there in the winter of that year, though his opera- 

 tions were confined more to the country south of Punta Rassa, but the 

 next season he extended his business and had everybody shooting for him. 

 Other parties were in the field also, and I received many letters from 

 dealers in New York and Jersey City asking me to buy plumes for them, 

 but I had had enough of it. Bird skins were taken at Myers in the stores 

 in exchange for food and clothing, and the consequence was that during 

 the spring preceding my departure from Rassa there was not a single 

 bird nesting on more than one, possibly two, of the islands where before 

 everyone of them had seemed to be overcrowded. 



"I hope our next legislature will put a stop to this indiscriminate shoot- 

 ing. I have talked to our Senator from Key West, who is an old friend of 

 mine, on the subject, and he is very much interested in it, and feels the 

 necessity for some action in the matter at the next session of the legisla- 

 ture." 



