Bird lore - Project Puffin

The Audubon Societies 63
ABANDONED NESTS IN A RUINED IBIS COLONY
directly from a plume-hunters' camp in
southern Florida, where agents of the
plume-traflic have been unusually active
this season. This grim evidence was dis-
played in order to bring the people of
Tampa to a more thorough realization of
the crime that is being enacted against the
state of Florida. During the four days it
was on display a crowd was always
gathered on the sidewalk watching it, and
reading every bulletin, word for word.
Many persons are growing erroneously
optimistic in regard to the status of the
Egret in Florida, for it is true that these
birds are now occasionally seen where
they have been unknown for years. Dur-
ing the past year, they have been quite
frequently observed in the environs of
Tampa, and a few days ago I saw an
Egret flying over the city. While the
Audubon Society has been the means of
saving these birds from total extinction,
the Egret is apparently increasing very
little in numbers in South Florida. A
steamboat company operating between
Fort Mj'ers and Miami refers, in an adver-
tisement, to the "millions of Egrets"
along Okeechobee and the Canals; but it
is mistaken. This misconception has
probably arisen from the inability of the
average observer to distinguish between
the Egret and other birds of white plu-
mage, notably the White Ibis and the
young of the Little Blue Heron.
Last summer I made a twenty-si.\-day
cruise from Tampa to Key West, in company
with Herbert K. Job, visiting all the
bird-rookeries along the southwest coast
of Florida, in the Ten Thousand Islands,
and up certain rivers to the Everglades,
and I saw less than five hundred pairs of
Egrets and twentj' pairs of Snowy Herons
during the entire trip; and, with the
exception of the Snowies, and possibly
fifty pairs of American Egrets, all these
birds were found in Alligator Bay at the
head of Chatham River. This colony was
guarded the past year by Sam Williams,