. . . There is no survivor, there is no future, 

 there is no life to be created in this form, again. 

 We are looking upon the uttermost finality . . . 

 We are in touch -with the reality of extinction. 



HENRY BEETLE HOUGH 



XIV ; The long flight back 



Of all extinct or near-extinct birds, past or present, none 

 is more symbolic of the fight to save threatened species from ex- 

 tinction than the American egret, the "long white" of the plume 

 hunter's vernacular. Early in the present century, as a result of the 

 demand for their plumes by the millinery trade, the egrets were 

 reduced to numbers that were dangerously low. According to 

 Arthur Cleveland Bent, the lowest ebb was apparently reached in 

 1902, which was the year in which he visited Florida for the first 

 time. Significantly, it was also the year following the founding of 

 an organization known then as the National Association of 

 Audubon Societies. Mr. Bent saw a few egrets on that first visit, 

 but none of them were nesting. The next year he was in Florida 

 again, and in one of the most remote sections of the state, at 

 Cuthbert Lake in Monroe County, he found a colony of some 

 4,000 water birds of various species, perhaps the only rookery of 

 that size that survived. Among this congregation of birds were 



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