74,649 
A Man-o’-War Bird in Flight. 
FOLLOWING AUDUBON AMONG 
Ble meh a 
FLORIDAG AGEN |S; 
By HERBERT K. JOB 
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 
ROM off Miami, out beyond Key 
West, nearly two hundred miles, 
extend a series of submerged coral 
reefs which form a breakwater for a par- 
allel chain of long narrow islands of rough 
coral rock formation, densely overgrown 
with trees and jungle. Inside these islands 
are great shallow bays with immense flats 
of white clay mud, containing hundreds of 
low islands. These last are not of coral, 
but are groves of red mangrove trees 
growing out of the mud in shallow water, 
around whose roots the soil has gradually 
lodged by the action of the tides. The 
seedling mangrove drops off from the pa- 
* This is the first of a series of rather remarkable 
photographs made by Mr. Job ona special exploration 
trip to Florida for OurinG; others will follow on birds 
of prey—shore birds, for which Mr. Job is gathering 
material for this magazine. 
rent tree, and is borne by the current until 
it grounds on a mud flat and takes root. 
Here it spreads out by sending down new 
roots from the branches—like the banyan 
tree of the Orient—then drops off seed- 
lings, which take root around it, and thus, 
in a few years, another key is formed. 
In Audubon’s time this great inac- 
cessible wilderness was the resort of pirates 
and wreckers. Even now, so shallow and 
difficult of navigation is it, a sail is a rare 
sight upon its waters. Few naturalists 
have penetrated its inner shallows, and 
many of the keys are still nameless. Even 
indefatigable Audubon only entered the 
portals of Florida Bay, never reaching 
Barnes’ Sound. Naturally, then, our little 
party of three on the 7-ton schooner, 
Maggie Valdez, was that night an enthu- 
