. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . came out into a round, openlake, a mile and a half across. Out in the middle of it he sawa small island of about two acres, densely overgrown withmangrove trees, whose dark foliage was almost hidden undera canopy of snow-white birds, — ibises, herons, and egrets, —with others of darker plumage. It must have been a beautiful and wonderful sight, a themefor the artist, a vision for the poet. But our plume-hunter wasnot that sort of a man ; the aesthetic side was lost ui:)on a clo
. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . came out into a round, openlake, a mile and a half across. Out in the middle of it he sawa small island of about two acres, densely overgrown withmangrove trees, whose dark foliage was almost hidden undera canopy of snow-white birds, — ibises, herons, and egrets, —with others of darker plumage. It must have been a beautiful and wonderful sight, a themefor the artist, a vision for the poet. But our plume-hunter wasnot that sort of a man ; the aesthetic side was lost ui:)on a closer in\estigation, he found that the island wascrowded in- innumerable thousands of several kinds of birds,some of them the species whose plumage would bring thehighest prices. There they were, the nesting-season at itsheight, brooding their eggs and feeding their young. Did Cuthbert spread the joyful news among the SeminoleIndians, the widely scattered settlers, or the outlaws that arein hiding in the swamps ? Not at all. He pondered thesethings in his own heart, with a mercenary intent. The snap. THE GREAT CUTHBERT ROOKERY 65 of his tiny Flobert rifle, inaudible a few rods away, attractedthe attention of no wandering alligator-hunter. Weeks wentby, and matters were very different upon the island. No birdnow winged its way to the solitude, save hordes of TurkeyBuzzards and Fish Crows. In the thousands of nests wereswarms of flies around the decaying bodies of young birdsthat had starved to death. On the ground were reeking pilesof the bodies of their natural protectors, each with strips ofskin and plumage torn from its back. The rookery was, asthe local term has it, shot out. The buzzards were gorgedand happy, and so was the brutal Cuthbert over his $1800from the wholesale milliners, so the story goes. Quite recently my friend and guide, the game-warden, hadvisited the spot, and, finding that quite a colony of birds hadlocated there again, posted warning game-protection no
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjobh, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds
