Notes from a Traveler in the Tropics 



395 



but the birds were so near — not more than 20 feet from the train — that we 

 passed them too quickly to permit a satisfactory view. 



The beauty of the morning hour, the lure of an unnamed bird darting 

 from one thicket to another, made me long to be afoot, but the sight of two 

 negroes standing near a smudge and making violent, and significant, gestures 

 about their heads, indicated that life on the Keys is probably not as rosy as it 

 looks from a car-window. 



As we neared Key West, a flying form of wide wing-spread, swept over- 

 head, and soon I counted five hydroplanes, adjuncts of the military Aviation 

 School at which man is learning to master the air. 



FRIGATE OR MAN-O'-WAR BIRDS ROOSTING ON THE MANGROVES. 

 THOSE WITH WHITE HEADS ARE YOUNG 



When I was last in Key West, twenty-six years ago, I doubt if the most 

 enthusiastic prophet of the city's future would have ventured to predict that 

 my next visit would be by rail, or that on arriving I should find men soaring 

 over the town like Frigate Birds ! 



The voyage from Key West to Havana was made at night. Early morning 

 revealed no birds off the coast or in Havana harbor. The Prado, parks, and 

 playas of Havana contain, apparently, only House Sparrows, introduced at an 

 early period in this bird's American history, I beHeve, from Spain. The sur- 

 roundings of the city are almost equally unattractive for the bird student. 



Fortunately, my mission called me to the Isle of Pines, 60 miles off the 

 southern coast of Cuba, opposite Havana. A motor-ride of 38 miles across 

 the island to the Port of Batabano, over a road continuously lined with arching 



