

iN A FLORIDA JUNGLE 
metto grows rankly everywhere, and in 
places we find the smooth-stemmed dwarf 
palmetto. Fringing the ocean beach is an 
eighth-of-a-mile strip wholly given up to a 
rank and almost impenetrable growth of 
saw palmettos, everything else, save an oc- 
casional cabbage tree, being jealously 
crowded out. 
And then the sea! 
It is deep close in shore, but the beach 1s 
all right for bathing, and the birds think 
it is all right for fishing. At evening hun- 
dreds of brown pelicans fly low over the 
foaming breakers, or along the crest of the 
beach, on their way to their famous rook- 
ery on Pelican Island, 10 miles below. 
Dainty little sanderlings run with twinkling 
legs along the sand at the edge of the creep- 
ing surf; royal terns gleam over the dark 
waves like flakes of burnished silver, ana 
at long intervals a somber man-of-war bird 
sweeps by. The pelicans frequently dive 
for fish out beyond the breakers, and some- 
times a school of porpoises will swim in the 
surf up and down the coast, for hours. Us- 
ually there are a goodly number of desir- 
able shells on the beach, but in February, 
7899, not one could be found. 
The night of our last arrival at Oak 
Lodge, a dog barked close by in the jungle. 
It was Jack, with another opossum up a 
tree. Captain Latham patiently reached for 
his gun, and remarked, “ If Jack has treed 
one ’possum, he has treed 300! ”’ 
* But why do you kill them? ” 
“ Unless we kill them, they eat our young 
chickens, and make it impossible to raise 
any. Justifiable didelphycide, surely; and 
we went out to see what would happen. 
A hundred yards from the house, in a 
picturesque grove of cabbage-palms, a 
sturdy little brindle dog growled and tore 
with his teeth at the trunk of a tree he could 
not climb. But our bicycle searchlight 
thrown aloft failed to locate the opossum. 
At last we picked up huge dry leaves of the 
palmetto — here called “ fans ’’ — lighted 
them and held them aloft. They made the 
lower half of the grove as light as day. At 
last we espied a pair of beady eyes and a 
pink nose peering down through a thick 
branch of live oak—and in another moment 
the tragedy was complete. 
Three nights in succession, this incident 
was repeated. On the fifth day, three half- 
grown raccoons were discovered at play on 
the dock, and promptly engaged by Jack. 
One was taken, atid the other 2 left, be- 
cause Jack could hold but one coon at a 
time. The little procyon was taken alive 
and unhurt, and duly installed in comfort- 
able captivity, preparatory to a journey 
Northward to the New York Zoological 
Park. 
Around Oak Lodge all shooting is pro- 
hibited, and in consequence the birds are 
very tame. On the little dock, which is 
quite a resort for otters, I have sat for 
179 
hours, field glass in hand, and watched 
wood ibises, great blue herons, little blue 
herons, Louisiana herons, ospreys and raft 
ducks, feeding in’ the creek. At times all 
these species were in sight at once. A wood 
ibis and a great blue heron came nearly 
every morning and fed along the shore of 
the creek, opposite the dock, and not more 
than 200 feet away. Farther up the creek, 
Mr. Newton Dexter saw, on 2 occasions, 
hundreds of wood ibises. This was up at 
“the pocket ’—where he always caught 
such fine mullet and bass, and shot a bunch 
of black-breasted plover, besides sundry 
raft ducks, for the table. 
There are game birds in the neighbor- 
hood which may properly be killed, but the 
sportsmen must work for every bird he gets. 
Usually fish are reasonably plentiful, and I 
have seen some very large sea bass and sea 
trout caught by Mr. Dexter. Last Febru- 
ary, however, fish seemed scarce, and Cap- 
tain Latham’s story of how his companion 
“Chris.” was twice “ yanked” off the bow 
Oh the erinicess Dy Aan enonmotus Catch of 
mullet in a cast net—(35 fish the first time, 
and 24 the next)—made us sigh for “ old 
times.” As it was, there was just enough 
fish on the table that we were never tired 
of it—and never before did Oak Lodge fish 
Uidwsliaicdiany ive Oysters taste qe So - 
good. A mullet fresh from Mullet creek, 
and fried crisp and brown, surely 1s de- 
licious. 
Ten miles below Oak Lodge lies Pelican 
island, where about 3,000 brown pelicans 
breed from December to April, and where 
no gun may be fired. It is the greatest sight 
in bird life I ever saw; but that is another 
story. 
Directly opposite the island, on the main 
shone, 1s Barker's blutt, a great hill 25 feet 
high composed of the shells of oysters and 
other molluscs that have been devoured by 
prehistoric man. All we know about the 
former inhabitants of Barker's Bluff is that 
they ate oysters, and threw away the shells. 
We presume, also, they died; but there is 
no evidence to that effect. Perhaps they 
moved away. The shell hill is several acres 
in area, and upon its edge stands in solitary 
grandeur the most magnificent live oak on 
the East coast. 
There are many things which combine to: 
make Oak Lodge an ideal resting place for 
AP iIAuia ist MOntOt a hive Omer Ol Mattie Let 
is (thank Heaven!) “ far from the madding 
crowd” of well-dressed, hotel-haunting 
tourists, who ‘dress for dinner,’ even in 
the woods, and who would rather wear 
silks and diamonds 365 days in the year than 
to taste real freedom in the jungle. One 
of the unwritten laws of Oak Lodge is that 
“no gentleman shall wear a coat save on 2 
days—the day he arrives and the day he 
leaves.” In this grateful and comforting 
Liberty Hall, bicycle suits are de rigucui- 
and the limit of formality. 

