8 I 2 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Nov. 21, 1908! 
pledged for this use by individuals and associa¬ 
tions, and 1,600 acres of land have been placed 
under special protection. The Legislature has 
authorized the commissioners to take any un¬ 
improved land on Martha’s Vineyard up to 1,000 
acres to use for the purpose of making fire stops 
for the protection of the feeding and breeding 
ground of these birds. 
After the investigation of the problems in¬ 
volved in the permanent maintenance of the 
heath hen, the Commission concludes that one 
A Florida Rookery. 
In the last number of the American Museum 
Journal, Frank M. Chapman tells something 
about the last rookery left in Florida which com¬ 
pares with those great gatherings of nesting 
birds that were formerly common all through the 
State. This is the Cuthbert rookery, situated 
in what the maps term the Great Mangrove 
Swamp, which borders the Everglades at the 
southern extremity of Florida. Here are to be 
for a few years longer it may be hoped tl| 
public sentiment as to bird destruction will ha 
so changed that the nesting place will no long 
be in danger. 
. 
Northerly Range of the Coyote. 
Okanagan Landing, B. G, Nov. i .—Edit 
Forest and Stream: In your interesting note i 
the northerly range of the coyote in a rec< 
issue of Forest and Stream, you state that t 
HEATH HENS AND NEST. 
Photograph of a group in the American Museum of Natural History. 
or more extensive areas should be acquired, 
patrolled and maintained by the Commonwealth 
as refuges for these birds; that suitable fire 
stops should be made to prevent the spread of 
brush fires; that all possible protection should 
be taken against infectious diseases, and that 
as soon as the number of birds have increased 
sufficiently, artificial propagation shall be under¬ 
taken. The money contributed up to December, 
1907, is $2,420, and as each dollar contributed 
adds at least one acre to the area of the refuge, 
it is believed that funds may be raised sufficient 
to procure extensive tracts as refuge for the 
heath hen and for other birds which still appear 
on the island. 
found a few roseate spoonbills, a few snowy 
egrets, three or four hundred American egrets, 
several hundred white ibises, a few cormorants, 
fifty little blue herons and at least 2,000 Louis¬ 
iana herons. 
Plume hunters have repeatedly visited this 
rookery and have killed off its birds, but they 
have not made a business of going there every 
year, and because it is a lonely spot, birds whose 
nesting places have been broken in less remote 
localities, go there as to a refuge. It was near 
here that Warden Bradley was shot while on 
duty, and the year before that the rookery was 
“shot out” and four or five hundred egrets 
killed. If this rookery can only be protected 
most northerly records for British Colunf 
were from the arid region near Ashcroft ( 
Shuswap. 
The coyote ranges commonly far north p' 
these localities. It is common at Quesnel |< 
up the Fraser River as far, at any rate,I 
Fort George. I sent a specimen from this rea 
to the Biological Survey collection about el 
years ago, which was identified by Dr. Merr;!] 
as Canis lestes. 
In the Lac la Hache Valley it is especil 
numerous and I have heard of ranchers t![ 
that paid their taxes with coyote scalps 
the bounty was only one dollar per head. 
There are records, I believe, far north of 1 
