A LIFE RECORD 55 



beach birds, also for Sharp-tailed and other finches. I was several 

 times at the mouth of St. Johns river. I had some friends in Govern- 

 ment employ who had nothing to do but to sail about, shooting. 

 It was a very fine place for water birds. Waders, Egrets, 

 Pelicans, Gannets, Skimmers, Oyster Catchers., etc., etc. I also 

 spent considerable time about St. Augustine, here saw more 

 Curlews, Godwits, Plovers, Terns and many Waders they were 

 about the bars by the thousand, large White and Blue Herons were 

 abundant. I got eight large White and three Blue in one evening. 

 The ladies wanted the plumes. You find the roosting places by 

 observing the way the birds flj' at night or morning ; conceal your- 

 self about the trees and shoot the birds as fast as they come 

 along; they come singly or nearly so and you can shoot any 

 number, or go to the breeding places. One man bought a little 

 schooner at Stevens where I boarded last spring to go down 

 Indian river, for nothing, only to shoot the Egrets and Herons, 

 for plumes, to send to Europe and the states, and says it is a 

 capital business. The Paroquets have a way of hovering about, 

 when one or two are shot, and the more that are wounded and 

 shot, the more anxious they are to alight about them, and when in 

 large flocks most every bird can be shot. Up at Enterprise last 

 wdnter, they would shoot whole flocks only for the sport of seeing 

 how many they could shoot at a shot, and unless something can 

 be done, and I do not know what, they will be exterminated. 



The breeding places at Lake Dexter, Lake Jessup, were entirely 

 broken up as were others up at Salt Lake, by plume hunters, 

 last spring. About half our living up at Enterprise was wild 

 turkeys ; I used both winters to weigh many of them. There was 

 a very great difference between the cocks and hens, six to ten 

 pounds was about the weight of hens ; cocks about twice as much, 

 and often had them twenty-five to twenty-eight pounds but 

 they were very fat. I saw one shot within one-half a mile of the 

 Ferry house opposite Jacksonville a few days before I left there. 

 I find many of the Florida birds are very local. I would see birds 

 at Fernandina not to be seen about Jacksonville ; at Jacksonville 

 not to be found at Greencove Springs, and so on. Hardly a 

 pleasant day I was not out to look and see if I could find any- 

 thing new. 



