248 ISLES 6F SUMMER. 
tributes its absence from Nassau to the fact that it cannot find 
there its appropriate food, as the blacks literally devour all the 
offal and waste of slaughtered animals, while death from disease 
or old age yields very meager and inadequate supplies. The 
buzzards are too wise and sagacious to remain in a place so poor 
and healthy as not to furnish them with a decent support, and the 
‘living ” which ‘‘the world owes ” them they seek elsewhere. 
Many birds frequent the pathless solitudes of the interior of 
the island of New Providence, and some parts of its shores and 
Lake Killarney abound with water fowl. 
We have no doubt the absence of birds from Nassau and its im- 
mediate vicinity, is the result of a persistent and long continued 
war upon them by the people. For sport, for food, and for sale, 
they have been killed or captured, and children have no doubt 
thoughtlessly and wantonly rifled and destroyed their nests. To 
the court of the hotel we have seen young ficdglings brought, 
and money paid by sympathetic ladies to secure their release. 
Had suitable laws been made and enforced for the protection 
of the birds upon the island of New Providence, Nassau and its 
suburbs would present a new and very attractive source of en- 
joyment for visitors from abroad, hardly second to any for which 
it is now distinguished. Nature was almost as bountiful in 
giving to the air of the coral isles gay and beautiful forms of 
life, as she has been to the waters which encircle them. But 
this part of the colonial capital’s inheritance of beauty and mel- 
ody has been thoughtlessly squandered. Wise legislation may 
do much to retrieve the loss, and to cause the soft, warm air to 
vibrate as in the olden times, with the rich and varied melody of 
tropical birds. The orchards with waxen leaves and golden fruit, 
the fadeless foliage of shade trees and forest, and the thickets 
with their flowering shrubs and climbing vines, belong rightfully 
to the beautiful birds. For their benefit they were in part 
created, and their possessory title is older than that of man’s, 
