76 Following Audubon among the Florida Keys 
the inaccessible shallows and keys of the 
inner bays. First, however, we sailed 
westward to Sandy Key, to examine this 
remote spot, six miles off Cape Sable, 
where Audubon passed the night under 
his mosquito net, t, and which he so vividly 
describes in one of his “episodes.” With 
a good easterly wind, we were there by 
noon, and hastened to go ashore. ‘The 
key is about a mile long, in two lobes, con- 
nected by a narrow grassy isthmus. ‘The 
rest of it ts mostly wooded. It is one of 
the few Florida keys that boast a genuine 
beach—of the regulation Cape Sable shell- 
sand. 
When Audubon landed there seventy- 
two years ago he records that “ our first fire 
among a crowd of the great godwits laid 
prostrate sixty-five of these birds. [This 
was before the days of “Audubon” so- 
cieties!|_ Rose-colored curlews [roseate 
spoonbills] stalked gracefully beneath the 
mangroves. Purple 
herons rose at almost 
every step we took, 
and each cactus sup- 
ported the nest of a 
white ibis. The air 
was darkened by 
whistling wings, while 
on the waters floated 
gallinules and other 
interesting birds.” 
Next morning, at low 
tide, he was amazed 
to see the flats cov- 
ered with feeding 
birds in all directions. 
But now, as we re- 
viewed these same 
scenes, traversed the 
long beach, searched 
the groves of red and 
black mangrove, ex- 
amined the little inte- 
rior pool and swamp, 
and the patches of 
cactus, we found a 
different state of 
things. Too conve- 
nient a landing place 
for the “conch” fish- 
ermen, there were no 
longer “acres” of ibis 
nests. We found 
these later, back from 
Cape Sable, on the 
main, in the inaccessible swamps to 
which they have been driven. A few 
pairs of great white herons, probably 
nesting, flew out from the mangroves 
and alit on the flats, where there were also 
great blue and Louisiana herons feeding, 
as well as some laughing gulls, black- 
breast plovers, and other shore birds. A 
lot of black-crowned night herons flew up 
from around the pond, and kept returning, 
as though they had nests somewhere 
about. Some brown pelicans, fish crows, 
and buzzards were flying around, and a 
pair of bald eagles, soaring conspicuously 
over the island, had their nest, a great pile 
of large sticks, six feet in height, about 
fifty feet up a giant black mangrove. On 
a number of other keys we afterward 
found similar eagles’ nests. The young 
had long since flown. 
As we walked along the beach, we 
noticed, a few yards out from shore, a 
SI", 
Pe a 
Young Great White Heron—The species Audubon discovered on the Florida keys. 
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