A ZIGZAG TRIP AND A ZOO 



the picturesque Tussock Key, but as we ap- 

 proached it the presence of a camp-fire and the 

 absence of campers suggested that it was occu- 

 pied by outlaws and that the latch string had been 

 pulled in at sight of us. 



"It's a good night for a run down the coast," 

 suggested the captain. 



"Then we'll anchor off Flamingo before we 

 sleep." 



i ^Then our mud hook went down in the night 

 we were lying off the southernmost point of the 

 mainland of Florida, in the shallow water of 

 Barnes's Sound. On one side of us was the key 

 where my friend Guy Bradley, game warden, 

 was shot down and his body left to drift in sight 

 of his home. South of us lay Man-o'-war Bush, 

 still frequented by flocks of the frigate pelican, 

 or man-o'-war hawk. The country about us was 

 once the home of a world of birds, but only frag- 

 ments of the great flocks remained. 



On a bank to the east of us I had once seen a 

 hundred flamingoes standing in soldierly line, 

 while red hands stretched across the sky marked 

 the flight of other flocks of the same beautiful 

 creatures. Near us was a creek leading through 



191 



