The Audubon Societies 



63 



ABANDONED NESTS IN A RUINED IBIS COLONY 



directly from a plume-hunters' camp in 

 southern Florida, where agents of the 

 plume-traflic have been unusually active 

 this season. This grim evidence was dis- 

 played in order to bring the people of 

 Tampa to a more thorough realization of 

 the crime that is being enacted against the 

 state of Florida. During the four days it 

 was on display a crowd was always 

 gathered on the sidewalk watching it, and 

 reading every bulletin, word for word. 



Many persons are growing erroneously 

 optimistic in regard to the status of the 

 Egret in Florida, for it is true that these 

 birds are now occasionally seen where 

 they have been unknown for years. Dur- 

 ing the past year, they have been quite 

 frequently observed in the environs of 

 Tampa, and a few days ago I saw an 

 Egret flying over the city. While the 

 Audubon Society has been the means of 

 saving these birds from total extinction, 

 the Egret is apparently increasing very 

 little in numbers in South Florida. A 



steamboat company operating between 

 Fort Mj'ers and Miami refers, in an adver- 

 tisement, to the "millions of Egrets" 

 along Okeechobee and the Canals; but it 

 is mistaken. This misconception has 

 probably arisen from the inability of the 

 average observer to distinguish between 

 the Egret and other birds of white plu- 

 mage, notably the White Ibis and the 

 young of the Little Blue Heron. 



Last summer I made a twenty-si.\-day 

 cruise from Tampa to Key West, in com- 

 pany with Herbert K. Job, visiting all the 

 bird-rookeries along the southwest coast 

 of Florida, in the Ten Thousand Islands, 

 and up certain rivers to the Everglades, 

 and I saw less than five hundred pairs of 

 Egrets and twentj' pairs of Snowy Herons 

 during the entire trip; and, with the 

 exception of the Snowies, and possibly 

 fifty pairs of American Egrets, all these 

 birds were found in Alligator Bay at the 

 head of Chatham River. This colony was 

 guarded the past year by Sam Williams, 



