ROOKEEIES ALONG FLORIDA 49 



Many of the trees in Florida are covered with poison- 

 oak vines and I should advise him whose skin is sus- 

 ceptible to the baneful influence not to visit a Florida 

 Herony. Again, the mosquitoes have no respect for for- 

 mality and unceremoniously introduce their germ-laden 

 bills into one 's anatomy on any and all occasions. 



The long-legged waders and quick-diving birds mani- 

 fest none of the combative traits of the land tree-dwell- 

 ers, an example of which is the bullet-like swoop of the 

 Migrant Shrike or the Robin. 



Long persecution and destruction by game birds or 

 by " game-hog" plume hunters has instilled a fear of man 

 and his loud noise of destruction. This is seen in the 

 wild commotion that is set up by the quick snapping of 

 a twig, when one is walking through a protected bird 

 colony. With one acclaim all birds able or old enough 

 to fly take wing the instant a dry twig is broken. 



It is nothing unusual to see several dead birds hang- 

 ing by the feet or neck where they have slowly died 

 while dangling, held fast by the imprisoned member in 

 the crotch of a mangrove limb. All young birds that fall 

 from the nest to the ground starve, for the old birds 

 never descend to feed them. Like monkeys, the young 

 birds climb from limb to limb and tree to tree, making 

 it very difficult to capture them for close picture-mak- 

 ing. 



On arrival at the rookery I carefully surveyed my 

 surroundings and selected the most favorable location 

 for my blind, amidst the most populous portion of the 

 island. Within a very few moments the tent was in 

 place and I was securely hidden and awaiting the return 

 of the birds that had been frightened away by my ap- 

 pearance. 



Someone has said that in a bird tent you don't have 

 to sit as still as a stone dog on a lawn. The scene from 

 the tent was truly like a great steaming hot-house in 

 this mangrove morass, with cider-colored water on every 

 side, filled with alligators, reptiles and other things that 

 crawl, while the steaming air was dense with flying pests. 

 Looking from the blind into the almost impenetrable 

 roots of mangrove I was reminded of a vast monkey 

 cage, so much do these young birds resemble the monkey, 

 as they crawl over the limbs of the trees. Add to this, 



