1 68 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



part in both continents, so that to the ornithologist 

 Audubon's Episodes is a volume as painful as the 

 records of those mighty hunters to the sportsman. 



Yet, if the numbers have dwindled, the variety 

 remains, and even on the tiny island of Useppa I 

 noticed quail, cardinals, bobolinks, mocking-birds, 

 egrets, kingfishers and half a dozen small winged 

 creatures that I did not recognise. 



It is obvious that even to-day Florida is 

 singularly suited to the needs of a large bird 

 population. There is abundance of fruit, cultivated 

 and otherwise, for some, and of fish for others. In 

 the bays and creeks, every acre is like the crowded 

 tank in an aquarium, where the curator is debarred 

 by want of space from giving his fishes adequate 

 room. The hinterland of this silent and sparsely 

 populated region is a wilderness of greenery that 

 provides shady and secluded breeding haunts and 

 inexhaustible resources in the way of insect food. 

 The watery wastes of the interior are interesting 

 only to the naturalist and hold out no inducement 

 to the settler, so that the last home on earth of the 

 Seminole Indian is in great measure deserted of the 

 human race, and is become a paradise in which the 

 birds can live their lives of love and food and battle 

 undisturbed by their tyrant. An hour's lazy drift- 

 ing among the islands, watching the affrighted 

 egrets peering nervously from their oozy hiding- 

 places in the mangroves, is an education in the 

 iniquities of the aigrette. To Englishmen at home, 

 who deplore the selfish modes favoured by their 

 womenfolk, there is just the grain of consolation 

 that nowhere are the spoils of this iniquitous traffic 

 more in evidence than in the smart hats that nod 



