KILLED FOR PLUMAGE AND FOR FOOD 163 



They are already much reduced in numbers and restricted 

 in habitat. They are naturally shy and their rookeries are 

 easily broken up. Their plumage makes them attractive 

 marks for the tourist's gun, and they are killed by the natives 

 for food. But fortunately their breeding-places are remote, 

 and almost inaccessible." 



The nests found by Mr. Bent on Cuthbert Lake, almost 

 on the edge of the Everglades, were built in red mangrove 

 trees on the edge of the water, all on nearly horizontal branches 

 from 12 to 15 feet from the ground. "They were well made, 

 of large sticks, deeply hollowed, and lined with strips of bark 

 and water moss. One nest contained only a single, heavily 

 incubated egg, one a handsome set of three eggs, and the 

 other held two downy young, not quite half grown." 



In my opinion there is no "cause," either existent or 

 creatable, not even the "cause of science," which could jus- 

 tify the killing or capture of any of the birds composing those 

 last small flocks of Spoonbills. Not even the necessities of a 

 zoological park should for one moment be accepted as an ex- 

 cuse for meddling with that avian remnant; and let no hunter 

 think of offering a bargain in live Spoonbills from Cape 

 Sable, or of now writing to ask "What will you give?" 



In January, 1914, it was reported to me at Marco, Florida, 

 that a colony of Spoonbills inhabits a protected egret rookery 

 that exists on an island in a small river that flows into the 

 Gulf of Mexico a short distance below Marco Island. 



