



AMERICAN OSPREY. 





VOL. I. 



ASHLAND, KY., FEBRITARY, 1890. 



NO. 



ON THE FLORIDA KEYS. 



BY HARLOW, 



TI13 writer, in company with a friend, 

 had been in camp about two weeks on a 

 charming little key, near the month of 

 the Coochee river, a small stream that 

 enters the Gulf of Mexico on the west 

 coast of Florida. 



We had hunted and fished to our 

 heart's content in the pine hammocks 

 and about the little ponds of the vicinity, 

 when, one afternoon, my companion 

 suggested a short trip to some of the 

 neighboring islands in search of eggs. 

 So, taking our guns and other imple- 

 ments of the collector's outfit, we step- 

 ped aboard our boat and started for Pel- 

 ican Island. Hardly had we left the 

 little cove, on the shore of which our 

 c imp was situated, when among a num- 

 ber of aquatic birds of various kinds, I 

 noticed a splendid specimen of that beau- 

 tiful bird, the Roseate Spoonbill. Bring- 

 in ; my gun to my shoulder, I fired, and 

 as the birds rose at the discharge, 1 was 

 d.uighted to see that the "pink- curlew'' 

 as the spoonbill is called by the Flor- 

 idians, remained behind. Quickly se- 

 curing my trophy, we resumed our 

 coarse, and in a short time arrived at the 

 island. Here we found that the man- 

 groves and live oaks had all been killed 

 by the excrement of the myriads of Pel- 

 icans that nested on the island; indeed, at 

 a distance the trees and bushes had the 

 appearance of being laden with snow, 

 while the ground was covered with 

 guano to the depth of several inches. 

 The dead trees were loaded with the 

 nests of the Brown Pelicans, while the 

 ground was almost entirely covered with 

 their nesting places. The nests on the 



trees were rude affairs, composed of 

 sticks, while most of those on the 

 ground were merely a handful of grass 

 or rushes, and many eggs were laid on 

 the bare ground. We frequently found 

 a freshly laid egg, a newly hatched chick 

 and one several times its size, in the same 

 nest, thus showing that the eggs of the 

 bird are laid at varying intervals. Tak- 

 ing to the water by hundreds, the old 

 birds swam gracefully about us, until, 

 having secured a number of specimens, 

 we returned to the boat, whereupon 

 they rejoined their screeching young. 



Leaving the island, we next visited a 

 heronry, which was situated on the coast 

 near a belt of cypress that extended for a 

 mile along the coast. On the way 

 thither we passed an extensive buzzard 

 roost, where thousands of buzzards hov- 

 ered and circled around upon our ap- 

 proach. Reaching the heronry we at 

 once began our quest for specimens, and 

 in a short time we had secured sets of 

 several kinds, among them being the 

 Anhinga or Snake bird, the Spoonbill 

 and the Ibis, besides the Herons, of which 

 latter we observed no less than five 

 species. 



Stowing our specimens carefully away, 

 we turned our boat towards the camp 

 and were just rounding the point of a 

 small mangrove island, when we saw a 

 large flock of coots which rose at our ap- 

 proach. As they darted upward in a 

 thick cloud, we both fired and had the 

 satisfaction of dropping eleven of their 

 number, which were soon secured, and 

 after a short run of twenty minutes we 

 reached our destination, where we were 

 soon at work preparing the prizes with 

 which our afternoon search had been 



rewarded. 



Brooklirie, Mass. 



