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he paddled along channels or lakes, wher- 
ever possible. Wher if was not, he car- 
ried canoe and outfit on his back, strug- 
gling through ‘the tropical tangle, and 
sleeping among the mangrove roots when 
night overtook him. From time to time 
he climbed a tree and verified his course 
by that of the birds. All the time he was 
fighting the hordes of mosquitoes that 
make the life of man there almost intoler- 
able. 
How many days he was thus engaged is 
not known. At last he reached the tangled 
shore of a round, open lake about a mile 
and a half across. Nearly in the middle 
of it he saw a small island of some two 
acres, densely overgrown with mangrove 
trees, whose dark foliage was almost hid- 
den under a canopy of snow-white birds— 
ibises, herons, and egrets—with others of 
darker plumage. Multitudes were perched 
upon the trees, while no less a company 
were coming and going. It must have 
been a beautiful and wonderful sight, a 
theme for the artist, a vision for the poet. 
But our plume-hunter was not of that sort; 
his aspirations could only be expressed in 
terms of dollars. Making a closer inves- 
tigation, he found that the islet was 
crowded with thousands upon thousands 
of the very birds whose plumage would 
bring the highest prices. ‘There they were 
at his mercy, the nesting-season at its 
height, brooding their eggs and feeding 
their young. 
Did Cuthbert hasten to spread the joy- 
ous news among the few human inhabi- 
tants of that wilderness—Indians, hunters, 
and outlaws in hiding in the swamps ? 
Not at all; the secret was locked up in his 
own breast, and meanwhile he was hard 
at work. The crack of his rifle, hardly 
louder than the snap of a twig, and in- 
audible only a few rods away, attracted 
the attention of not a single stray hunter. 
Weeks went by, and matters were very 
different upon the island. No bird now 
winged its way to the solitude, save bands 
of buzzards and fish crows. Swarms of 
flies buzzed around the thousands of nests 
whose only occupants were the decaying 
young that had starved to death. On the 
ground were reeking piles of the bodies 
of their natural protectors, each with a 
strip of skin and plumage torn from its 
back. The rookery was—as the local 
term of the plumers has it—‘shot out.” 
The Great Cuthbert Rookery 
The buzzards were gorged and happy, 
and so was the brutal Cuthbert over his 
$1,800—from the wholesale milliners— 
so the story goes. 
Quite recently our guide—the game- 
warden—had visited the spot, and, find- 
ing that quite a colony of birds had again 
located there, posted game-protection 
notices. Naturally I was anxious to see 
this remarkable place, but had to let the 
rest of my party go there first without 
me, while I was recovering from the effects 
of drinking swamp water. After they had 
returned home, I took the trip alone with 
the guide. 
To reach that rookery involves what no 
one but a thorough enthusiast ought to 
venture upon. ‘The first stage is to push 
or drag a skiff a dozen miles over the “ soft- 
soap flats,” the mud being well up to the 
knees—such is Barnes’ Sound near the 
mainland. This occupied us till midnight, 
with the pleasure, then, of sleeping on 
some boards across the thwarts of the boat, 
out in the rain. The second stage is 
sculling, pushing, chopping, and dragging 
the boat for seven miles through a series 
of channels, completely overgrown and 
choked up with roots and branches of the 
mangrove, that connects a chain of shal- 
iow lakes. The openings to these pass- 
ages are entirely hidden by the jungle; it. 
would be suicidal for a stranger to the 
country to attempt the trip unguided. 
Even after having made it once, I know 
I could not find the way alone, nor could 
I when I was at the rookery have found 
the way out. 
It was afternoon when, pretty well tired, 
we saw the waters of the desired lake 
sparkling through the green of the blinding 
thicket. For a time I forgot the torment- 
ing mosquitoes as I strained my eyes for 
the first glimpse of the islet. There it lay 
out in the lake, not altogether white with 
birds, yet with enough of them in evidence 
to verify the wonderful tales that I had 
heard. The tree-tops were dotted with 
white, and there was a constant proces- 
sion of birds to and from the island. 
We ate dinner out on the lake, to 
avoid the clouds of “skeets,” then cleared 
a spot for camp in the mangrove swamp 
on the shore nearest the island, after which 
we pulled for the rookery. The nearer 
we approached, the more birds were 
visible; many white, some black, and 
