AMONG THE FLORIDA KEYS 37 



Despite all our efforts thus far, we had not found the Man- 

 o'-War Birds actually breeding. So we were glad enough, 

 after exploring this key, to run off half a dozen miles before 

 the wind, which had now shifted to the west, to a small key 

 which the guide said was a resort for immense numbers 

 of this great bird. It was back under Key Largo, farther 

 eastward than we had been. We came to anchor near sun- 

 set, and at once I set out in the tender alone with the guide, 

 the other ornithologists being busy and deciding to wait till 

 morning. As we rowed through a narrow passage between 

 the mangroves, a break in a long peninsula, there lay the 

 little round green islet before us. First of all flew out some 

 Florida Cormorants which were watching us from a little 

 mangrove clump out in the water. Then, as we approached 

 within long gunshot of the island, began a wonderful scene. 

 Only a few Man-o'-War Birds had been visible, perched on 

 the tree-tops, or flying and alighting ; but now they began 

 to rise in scores, then in hundreds, yes, in thousands. The 

 area of the island was hardly over an acre, and it seemed 

 incredible that so many large birds could have found footing 

 on the trees, for the Man-o'-War Bird has a spread of wing 

 of nearly seven feet. I secured a picture of them as they 

 began to rise from the island, and then a number as they 

 soared overhead, the sky being fairly black with them in 

 all directions, before they gradually drifted away to hover 

 over another distant key. One only had to point a camera 

 upward, almost anywhere, and snap, to get a plate full of the 

 gracefully soaring birds. 



Then we rowed to the island. Several Reddish Egrets, the 

 only ones we met with on the trip, started out from the man- 

 groves close at hand, as did some Louisiana Herons. The 

 island itself was entirely under water, and the trees were white 

 with filth. But even here the elusive Frigates were not nest- 



