Wholesale Destruction of Birds in Florida. 



179 



these islands I saw but four pelicans (tliey were flying 

 by), two or three frightened herons, and a few gulls 

 and terns. * * * Once at this time of the year a 

 perfect cloud of birds were to be seen hovering all 

 day over the islands, so tame and unsuspicious that 

 they had little or no fear of man, but now the place 

 is almost deserted by birds, and the few that are left 

 have become, by being hunted, as wary as the tradi- 

 tional deer." 



The above extracts give Mr. Scott's first 

 impressions as to the changes wrought by 

 skin collectors, impressions which further 

 wanderings did nothing to remove. The 

 same day (April 30, 1886) he passed another 

 deserted heronry, which had many herons 

 breeding on it in 1880, and the next day he 

 reached John's Pass, where he particularly 

 wished to observe a rookery visited in April 

 six years before. 



"At that time (he writes) I made two visits of a 

 day and a night each in this same rookery, and 

 among the myriads of birds that are breeding and 

 roosting the particular abundance of the roseate 

 spoonbill, the reddish egret and all of the common 

 herons, as well as the white ibis, will never be for- 

 gotten. It is enough to state without going into 

 great detail, that in one flock at that time were at 

 least two hundred wonderfully colored spoonbills, 

 and that the number of the other species were many 

 times greater." 



Now observe what he says of the state of 

 affairs in 1886: 



" Looking carefully over both (islands) I could see 

 no birds where we anchored, but as the sun began 

 to get low in the west, a few — possibly fifty in all — 

 shy and suspicious herons straggled in to roost on 

 the smaller of the two keys, and a flock of fish crows 

 were the only visitors at the larger. * * * Nq 

 spoonbill, not a single white ibis — in fact an utter 

 transformation from the happy and populous com- 

 munity of only a few years before." 



Every day's observation is but a weary 

 repetition of the same experiences. Referring 

 to his cruise through Charlotte Harbor he 

 writes: 



Captain Baker, who sailed the sloop, an old 

 sponger and fisherman who had been familiar with 

 all of this country for twenty-five years or more, 

 pointed out to me among these islands, four at dif- 

 ferent points, where he assured me vast rookeries 

 had existed. One of perhaps sixty acres he said he 



had seen so covered with "white curlew" that, to 

 use his own words, " it looked from a distance as if 

 a big white sheet had been thrown over the man- 

 groves." And though we passed by, as I have said 

 before, islands that plainly showed, by excrement 

 still on the ground, that once countless numbers of 

 birds had lived there, sailing probably over about 

 forty miles in all, I did not see a rookery that was 

 occupied even by a few birds, and I only saw a few 

 stray gulls, pelicans, and two herons in the whole 

 day's cruise. About 4 o'clock, P. M., we reached a 

 little settlement at the mouth of Pease Creek, called 

 Hickory Bluff', and I went ashore to get what infor- 

 mation I could regarding birds. 



The postmaster and several other citizens with 

 whom I talked all agreed that five or six years be- 

 fore birds had been plenty at the rookeries, and that 

 it was no trouble to get hundreds of eggs to eat or 

 to kill as many birds as one cared to. But that for 

 the past two years birds had been so persecuted, to 

 get their plumes for the Northern market, that they 

 were practically exterminated, or at least driven 

 away from all their old haunts. I further learned 

 that all of the gunners and hunters in the country 

 round, had up to this year reaped a very considerable 

 income from this source. Birds were killed, and the 

 plumes taken from the back, head, and breast, and 

 the carcass thrown to the buzzards. Fort Myers, on 

 the Caloosahatchie, was the central local market for 

 this traffic, where several buyers were always ready 

 to pay a high cash price for all plumes and fancy 

 feathers. The force of resident buyers was increased 

 during the winter of each year by taxidermists (?) 

 and buyers from the North, who came, in some cases 

 at least, provided to equip hunters with breech- 

 loaders, ammunition, and the most approved and 

 latest devices for carrying on the warfare. One 

 man, who had come down in this way for the past 

 four years, was down South now, and regularly em- 

 ployed from forty to sixty gunners, furnishing them 

 with all supplies and giving so much a plume or flat 

 skin, for all the birds most desirable. The prices, 

 I was told, ranged from twenty cents to two dollars 

 and a half a skin, the average being about forty cents 

 apiece. 



During his stay here he was visited by 

 two plume hunters, from whom he obtained 

 a great deal of information as to the condi- 

 tion of things, past and present. One of 

 them, Abe Wilkerson, was on his way to 

 some lakes far up the river, where he hoped 

 to find large rookeries of the little white 

 egret. 



His method of obtaining birds (he told Mr. Scott) 



