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wildcat, the alligator and rattlesnake are there. This fact is 
still more interesting when we take into account the fact that 
many of the upper keys are relatively close to the mainland and 
some of them were formerly almost connected with it, while 
the lower keys are not only cut off from the upper ones by the 
wide Bahia Honda channel but are separated from the mainland 
by an unbroken expanse of water forty miles wide or more. 
On the keys where the pine is absent palms predominate and 
arboreous vegetation. The several kinds grow either inter- 
mingled or in pure groves, and on the prairie-like expanses they 
present a unique landscape. 
Although vegetation on these keys, and elsewhere had not 
recovered from the effects of the hurricane referred to, and being 
still further reduced by a prolonged drought we secured over 
four hundred field numbers and about two thousand specimens 
of the rarer and more interesting species of plants. Big Pine 
Key yielded a Bahamian shrub new to our flora. A thorough 
investigation of these keys at both the beginning and end of the 
rainy season would doubtless yield surprising results, for previous 
collecting on them has evidently been largely or wholly confined 
to the coastal hammocks. Our discovery of acres of the saw 
almetto on all of the keys visited and of immense groves of the 
cabbage palmetto on several of the keys is a strong indication 
as to the superficial method of collecting done there before, for 
the existence of these conspicuous plants off the Florida mainland 
had not been previously suspected, except for a report of the 
occurrence of the cabbage palmetto on Key Lar. 
Respectfully seer 
J. ALL, 
Head Curator of the Museums and Herbarium. 
