248 ISLES OF SUMMEE. 



tributes its absence from Nassau to the fact that it cannot find 

 there its appropriate food, as the bhicks literally devour all the 

 offal and waste of slaughtered animals, Avhile death from disease 

 or old age yields very meager and inadequate supplies. The 

 buzzards are too wise and sagacious to remain in a place so poor 

 and healthy as not to furnish them with a decent support, and the 

 *' living" which "the world owes " them they seek elsewhere. 



Many birds frequent the pathless solitudes of the interior of 

 the island of New Providence, and some parts of its shores and 

 Lake Killarncy abound with water fowl. 



"We have no doubt the absence of birds from Nassau and its im- 

 mediate vicinity, is the result of a persistent and long continued 

 war upon them by the people. For sport, for food, and for sale, 

 they have been killed or captured, and children have no doubt 

 thoughtlessly and wantonly rifled and destroyed their nests. To 

 the court of the hotel we have seen young fledglings brought, 

 and money paid by sympathetic ladies to secure their release. 



Ilad suitable laws been made and enforced for the protection 

 of the birds upon the island of New Providence, Nassau and its 

 suburbs would present a new and very attractive source of en- 

 joyment for visitors from abroad, hardly second to any for which 

 it is now distinguished. Nature was almost as bountiful in 

 giving to the air of the coral isles gay and beautiful forms of 

 life, as she has been to the waters which encircle them. But 

 this part of the colonial capital's inheritance of beauty and mel- 

 ody has been thoughtlessly squandered. Wise legislation may 

 do much to retrieve the loss, and to cause the soft, warm air to 

 vibrate as in the olden times, with the rich and varied melody of 

 tropical birds. The orchards with waxen leaves and golden fruit, 

 the fadeless foliage of shade trees and forest, and the thickets 

 with their flowering shrubs and climbing vines, belong rightfully 

 to the beautiful birds. For their benefit they were in part 

 created, and their possessory title is older than that of man's. 



