Some Familiar Florida Birds 



By MRS. F. W. ROE 



With pholographs ti>- ilu- ;iutlii>r 



AT our winter home in Florida, on the Halifax river, food for both 

 hard- and soft -billed birds is kept the year round on trees, the 

 ground, and on one veranda, where water for their bathing is kept 

 also; and in this way we have gradually attracted many varieties, and have 

 been able to study them while only a few feet from us. Close to one 

 window of the cottage is a large live-oak, where Cardinals, Mocking- 

 birds, Woodpeckers, Blue Jays and numerous Warblers, and other species, 

 can be seen at almost any hour of the day; and it is on this tree, also, that 



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KLORIDA BLUE J A >. v 



a Brown Thrasher has made his nightly home during the past two winters. 

 As the wife of an officer of the Regular Army, I have had an exceptional 

 opportunity for the cultivation of the "seeing eye" in many states and 

 territories, and I have found the birds of Florida not only more beautiful, 

 but far more attractive and lovable, than those to be seen north or west. 

 The young Mocking-bird rarely sings after the first cold winds in the 

 fall; therefore, very few northerners know how beautiful the natural song of 

 this bird is. or how perfect the technique, before he has learned to imitate 

 other birds, and has turned his own exquisite aria into a rag-time pot- 

 pourri of the notes of his neighbors. And only a favored few of those who 

 remain late in the season hear the delightful song of the female Florida 



