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[Illustration: ROBERT BARNWELL ROOSEVELT.]




                                FLORIDA

                                AND THE

                           GAME WATER-BIRDS

                                OF THE

          ATLANTIC COAST AND THE LAKES OF THE UNITED STATES,

                                 WITH

          A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE SPORTING ALONG OUR SEASHORES
                   AND INLAND WATERS, AND REMARKS ON
                  BREECH-LOADERS AND HAMMERLESS GUNS.


                                  BY

                      ROBERT BARNWELL ROOSEVELT,

    AUTHOR OF “THE GAME-FISH OF NORTH AMERICA,” “SUPERIOR FISHING,”
        “FIVE ACRES TOO MUCH,” “ISMS,” “POLYANTHUS,” ETC., ETC.


                             ILLUSTRATED.

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                               NEW YORK:
                         ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
                             751 BROADWAY.
                                 1884.

    Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by the
                         ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,




PREFACE.


In preparing this work, after I had written the account of Florida,
which, as a sporting country, had never been fully described, and was to
occupy the principal part of my attention, and when I came to the second
division, that relating to the game-birds of our waters and coasts
generally, I found so much in a book on a kindred subject, which I had
written years ago, that I concluded I could do no better than quote from
it freely. The directions therein given are as correct now as then, the
information as well founded, and I hope the reader will find the stories
of sporting excursions as interesting.

My main purpose is to call the attention of my brother sportsmen to that
paradise of the devotee of the rod and gun, the Southern Peninsula of
our Atlantic States. Game is disappearing from our home country;
woodcock and ruffed grouse have almost been exterminated; ducks are less
plentiful; bay snipe now make many of their flights directly at sea
without passing over the land; and if we are to obtain satisfactory
shooting, we must go some distance for it. Many persons who are fond of
outdoor life cannot stand exposure to cold weather, and still more, to
keep up their interest, must have the chance of making a larger bag than
they can count on at the North. Yachtsmen are in the habit of laying up
their craft during the best season of the year for the enjoyment of
sailing. They have looked upon the South either as an uninteresting or a
dangerous country, a land merely of alligators or of hurricanes. They
will be as surprised as pleased to learn that there is no better sailing
ground, and that the Southern waters in winter are as safe as Northern
waters in summer; so much so that small vessels and open boats have
braved their terrors, while their sporting advantages are not to be
surpassed, if they are to be equalled, by any in the world.

While not absolutely the pioneer in