Following Audubon among the Florida Keys 
was the commotion among its inhabitants. 
A confused mass of wings were seen and 
heard beating the tree-tops and the air as 
two or three hundred birds rose—the 
brown pelicans, cormorants, and man-o’- 
war birds. The first two flew directly away, 
the latter separated from the others, and, 
in a flock, soared higher and higher over- 
head, giving me time for two more pic- 
tures. 
Eager to see the nests, we forced our 
way through the tangle of mangrove roots 
and branches. Everything was as filthy 
as should be in a great nesting-place, but 
great was our surprise and disappointment 
to find that there were no nests. It wa 
merely a roost, but one constantly ee 
to. The birds, though now dispersed, re- 
turned that evening in much larger num- 
bers, and when we sailed by here later on 
the trip, one night at dusk, there were 
hundreds of them, both in the trees and 
hovering, mostly man-o’-war birds. Ever 
since he had known the region, the guide 
said, this had been their principal place 
of resort in that vicinity. Inasmuch as 
water-birds are very tenacious of their 
resorts when not too much persecuted, it 
is very probable that this was the rookery 
which Audubon visited on his second 
day’s excursion. 
It was not before sundown that we suc- 
ceeded in warping the schooner out of her 
sticky resting place. We sailed on, dodg- 
ing shoals, or scraping over them, until 
about nine o’clock, when, in the dark, we 
ran aground once more, but got free, eH. 
anchored for the night. At daybreak we 
started on, and that day managed to keep 
afloat. The wind was light, and we 
worked leisurely along, seeing a big turtle, 
now and then, floating on the surface, and 
an occasional sea-bird—pelicans, laughing 
gulls, a very few terns, and once a para- 
sitic jaeger. In the afternoon we passed 
Sandy Key, the farthest point that Audu- 
bon reached. A few splendid great white 
heron—the largest heron of North Amer- 
ica, snow-white, which Audubon discoy- 
ered on these keys, and named—were 
perched appropriately on the trees. As 
the guide was in a hurry to get home, we 
postponed our landing here “and kept on 
toward a spot on the now visible mainland, 
about ten miles east of Cape Sable. 
Here we remained for a week, making 
trips into the interior and to neighboring 
ie) 
keys. Some of these keys, owing to the 
shallowness of the water, we could best 
reach in small boats. One day, ap- 
proaching a small key, I saw several great 
white herons—splendid birds, nearly as 
tall as a man—flying uneasily about, well 
over the tops of the trees. On landing 
and clambering about for some time amid 
mangrove roots and slippery, sticky mud, 
never ceasing, withal, to fight mosquitoes, 
I was finally rewarded by finding several 
of their nests, built in crotches, twenty to 
thirty-five feet above the ground, bulky, 
saucer-shaped platforms of good-sized 
sticks. Each of them, of course, was pro- 
fusely whitewashed, as were the surround: 
ings, and contained two or three snowy 
white young, in various stages, from cal- 
low nestlings to those nearly matured and 
almost able to fly. 
One nest especially interested me. It 
was conveniently situated, about thirty 
feet from the ground, and was occupied by 
an imposing young heron of almost full 
size, which stood on the nest and received 
me in dignified manner, not scrambling 
or fluttering out, as young herons are all 
too apt to do. While I admired him and 
screwed my camera to a branch, he never 
moved, nor did he at the critical moments 
of exposure. Then, as I would stir him 
up a bit, he retreated out beyond the nest, 
where he stood like an obelisk, showing 
his good breeding in every inch of his 
stature, as I again took his picture. 
Not so well bred were a trio of half- 
grown scapegraces in a neighboring nest. 
These were of the sulky sort, that threw 
themselves prostrate in miserable atti- 
tudes, refusing to stand up and behave, 
despite of all that I—even assisted by my 
guide—could do. Another nest with two 
tiny fledglings also gave me trouble, from 
the difficult combination of wind, move- 
ment, and shadows. However, I con- 
quered them, and then climbed to a rather 
lofty nest near by of the great blue heron, 
whose two youthful inmates spent their 
time in making vicious lunges at me, ac- 
companied by the harshest expletives of 
the heron tongue. I did not catch sight of 
their parents, but now and then a vision 
of white, ghost-like, passed silently over- 
head, safely distant. 
Having secured another (and nameless) 
vessel of lighter draught than the Maggie, 
we started off on a general exploration of 
