CHAPTER I
GOING SOUTH WITH THE WARBLERS
When I left New York, I thought that I had
said good-by to the smaller migrating birds for
three days. My steamer's keel was to furrow
nearly a thousand miles of rough sea before it
landed me in Florida, where among live-oak and
palmetto, bamboo and sugar cane, I might hope
to meet tiny friends that I had loved and lost
a while. I rather expected flocks of migrating
sea birds, and in this I was disappointed. The
usual gulls whirled and cackled in our wake, kittiwakes
and herring gulls, brown backs and black
backs, a horde that thinned with each steamer
we met, taking return tickets to port, seemingly
loath to leave the fascinating region of Coney
Island.
The hundreds had dwindled to almost a lone specimen before, just off Charleston, the pelicans came out to look us over. Not a duck did I see till the pelicans had approved us. Then we began to drive out scattered flocks. Perhaps the
