Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/338

324 gray rock on which they are laid, it is only by a rare chance if you find a nest without flushing the old bird. The young nighthawk is about as broad as long, and, unlike the callow young of most birds, it is covered from head to foot with a thick coat of down.

On our return we anchored the first night in a little harbor at Allons' Key, where two small fishing-boats had already taken refuge from a threatening squall. We saw the ruins of several huts on this island, and the remains of a small grove of cocoanut trees, which had been blown down in the destructive hurricane of September, 1884, The place was so infested by mosquitoes that this little settlement had to be abandoned. It rained heavily in the night, but our men took an early start, and awoke us the next morning at five by announcing the discovery of a



"loggerhead's track." The beaches had been leveled by the rain, so that any new impression could be readily seen. The turtle had ascended the beach to a point above high tide, had stirred up the sand, leaving a great heap over her eggs, and returned to the water but a short time before we landed. This was shown by the ebbing tide, which had retreated only a short distance from her last tracks. The eggs were laid in a bunch, and covered with sand a foot and a half deep. There were