HOUSE AND GARDEN 
February, 
1914 
The young water turkey is an 
ungainly youngster 
them I’ll be solemn as an owl and 
quiet as a graven image. Will the 
birds wait till the boat gets there?” 
“They wouldn't wait for this 
power boat, which will stop half a 
mile this side of the rookery. Then 
you and I will get into the canoe 
and I will paddle you up to the 
bird key.” 
“Will the birds wait for us?” 
“I am afraid not, for every boat 
that follows the coast passes near 
the rookery and every tourist with 
a gun fires at the flying birds until 
the poor creatures have learned 
that every report spells m-u-r-d-e-r to them.” 
“You can throw away the key of my gun case, for 1 never 
want to open it again,” said the girl. 
As we neared the bird key, with 
Marion sitting low in the bow of 
the canoe holding her camera at 
ready, I paddled so slowly that 
our progress was like that of a 
drifting log; yet we were two 
hundred yards from the island 
when the air began to fill with 
birds flying high, and even the 
mother birds began leaving their 
nests. Far above us the man-o’- 
war hawks circled, sweeping in 
wide curves as they rose and fell 
with almost motionless wings. 
The clumsy pelicans hovered near 
for a minute or two before heav¬ 
ily flying for the shore, where they 
perched on mangroves to watch 
us. Among the trees were lesser 
birds, which one by one took wing 
at our approach. There were 
many members of the heron fam¬ 
ily, one a snowy egret, and my 
wonder was that even a single 
specimen of the loveliest bird in 
the world had thus far escaped the 
"We would persuade the great blue herons to alight on the harpoon pole, then lower 
it below the surface” 
rapacity of men 
and the vanity 
of women. It 
required no seer 
to predict for 
the beautiful 
creature an 
early death, for 
the extinction of 
its race is hang¬ 
ing in the bal¬ 
ance. My com¬ 
panion took a 
camera shot at 
the big birds in 
the air and one 
at a swimming 
pelican, but the 
distance was so 
great that I had 
to warn her that 
a camera had 
not the range of 
"The egret spread his wings in the most picturesque manner imaginable in the effort to balance 
himself" 
“While the white ibis mother sat on a nearby branch awaiting her turn before 
the camera” 
a rifle. 
“What is that 
pretty bird with 
the pink complexion and the funny round bill?” she whispered, 
“and isn’t it near enough for a shot?” 
But before I could answer the creature had taken wing. 
“That was a roseate spoonbill, called pink curlew for short, 
and that very dark bird that you are looking at now is also 
called curlew, though it is really a white ibis, and that white 
bird near it is a little blue heron." 
“Is a white bird always dark and a dark bird always a white 
something in this funny country? It sounds like Australia, 
where the crows are white and the swans black.” 
“Not always, but often. See the bunch of birds on that dead 
tree ?” 
“I see them, jet black bodies and snake-like necks. What 
is their name ?” 
“They’ve got names to burn: snake bird, darter, and the one 
by which they are commonly called, water turkey. They are 
as black as a crow and trim as a pretty girl—I don’t mean you 
- — and nothing ever looked less like a goose than one of them; 
but when one of her eggs is hatched, a creamy white, blubbery 
gosling comes out.” 
“Now we’ve frightened them and I can't get a picture. No, 
