14 Scott on Birds observed in Florida. 



ON BIRDS OBSERVED IN SUMPTER, LEVY, AND 

 HILLSBORO' COUNTIES. FLORIDA. 



BY W. E. D. SCOTT. 



My purpose in the following pages is to give additional notes 

 on the distribution and habits of certain birds that do not seem to 

 have come commonly under the notice of ornithologists collecting 

 in Florida during the fall, winter, and early spring months. The 

 data which follow were collected during two visits to Florida, 

 and at the several points to be presently indicated. The first of 

 these visits occurred in 1876 and covered a period extending from 

 January 1 to the end of the following March. The observations 

 then made were confined to the interior, the precise location 

 being at Panasofkee Lake in Sumpter County. Here a large 

 region was carefully studied and particularly the bird fauna of 

 this lake, — a small body of water, about eight miles long and 

 four broad in its widest part. Its greatest depth is, so far as ascer- 

 tained, about fifteen feet, but the general depth is much less, 

 being not more, than three or four feet. The general character- 

 istics of the region are those common to many parts of the State, 

 — rolling sandhills wooded with pine, " hummocks." some of great 

 extent, and wet open grass lands or marshes. These last give 

 rise to certain small streams supplying the lake, which in its turn 

 has a large outlet leading into the Withlacoochee River, forming 

 one of the main branches of that river. The lake is bounded by 

 ••saw-grasses" and cypress swamps; the latter are very exten- 

 sive about the outlet of the lake and along the river above-men- 

 tioned. 



Late in October, 1879, I again visited Florida, and spent from 

 November 1 until April 5 on the Gulf Coast. The interval from 

 the 1st of November until the 25th of January was passed at a 

 point some three miles north of the mouth of the Withlacoochee 

 River. Here the Gulf is dotted for a distance of three or four 

 miles from the shore with innumerable islands, mostly low and of 

 very limited area. The main land, as it approaches the Gulf, is 

 heavily wooded with pine, interspersed here and there with small 

 hummocks. The pine forests end generally very abruptly in large 

 salt marshes reaching to the Gulf. 



