July, 1919 ? AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 169 
CEDAR KEYS, FLORIDA 
Our first stop to collect, November 6, was at Cedar Keys, on the west coast 
of the peninsula, which we reached by train from Baldwin on the direct line to 
Jacksonville. The island not proving a very desirable collecting ground, Mr. 
Maynard and his wife took the steamer to Key West on a prospecting trip, 
while I continued to collect birds about Cedar Keys, and Mr. Weeks continued 
to sketch. After a few days I made the acquaintance of the engineer of a con- 
struction train which made daily trips out into the pine barrens and hummocks 
of the mainland, and this proved most fortunate. By making use of the train, 
through the courtesy of the engineer, I was enabled to secure many desirable 
birds, including a number of one species I was never to see again in its native 
haunts, the Carolina Paroquet, the subsequent extinction of which curious and 
beautiful species must cause a pang of regret in the heart of every true bird 
lover. 
While in Cedar Keys we experienced a ‘‘norther’’ which in the almost fire- 
less condition of the town afforded a more accurate idea of life in the polar re- 
gions than I have ever known since. Much of the less hardy vegetation on the 
island was frost-killed, and, although the temperature of the coastwise waters 
was lowered only a few degrees, vast numbers of fish were killed and cast up 
on the beach. | 
January 2, the party was reunited at Key West, which had proved very 
unremunerative collecting ground. Upon the strength of information obtained 
by Mr. Maynard we took passage on a sponger, ‘‘The Explorer’’, and, after 
four delightful days among the Keys, in which the plankton of the Gulf Stream 
revealed some of its wonders, we found ourselves at Miami, which was to prove 
our headquarters for several months. 
REACH MIAMI ON THE EAST COAST 
Miami was then but a wilderness, and where today is a populous winter 
resort, then there were only two or three houses on the south bank of the river. 
and none at all on the north bank, save what remained of the officers’ quar- 
ters and barracks, relics of the government buildings that dated back to the 
days of the second Seminole war (1835). Major J. V. Harris, a native of Mis- 
sissippi, who had served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, was 
in possession of the north bank of the river, and he and his wife lived in the 
most easterly of the old quarters, while we rented from him the other two. 
Between its hammocks and its surrounding pine woods, Miami proved in- 
viting territory, and we collected birds with such ardor and success that I have 
never thought of the place since without experiencing Symptoms of that emo- 
tion, not overcommon among bird collectors, remorse. It was with much 
pleasure, therefore, that I read Bradford Torrey’s account of his stay in the 
place many years later, from which it appears that Nature in her own good 
time set about repairing the damage we had done in our efforts to secure ‘‘ good 
series’’ of the birds of the locality. Torrey’s list shows that few if any of the 
species we found there are now missing, while not a few species not present in 
our time have come in as the result of changed conditions, as the presence of 
gardens, parks, and imported tropical vegetation. 
THE EVERGLADES 
We extended our researches across Biscayne Bay to the ocean beach, and 
up the Miami to the Everglades by means of a row-boat, which, in addition to 
