SAND DUNES AND SALT MAESHES 



ern Massachusetts to-day than it has been for 

 over a hundred years, and it is possible that 

 in some localities it is even more abundant 

 than has ever been the case. At first thought 

 this seems a rash statement and an unreason- 

 able conjecture, but it is within the bounds 

 of possibility, for not only has white man 

 ceased to persecute the deer, but he has elim- 

 inated its natural enemies, such as w^olves, 

 lynxes and panthers, as well as the Indians. 

 Thoreau wrote in 1853: '' Minot says his 

 mother told him she had seen a deer come 

 down the hill behind the house and cross the 

 road and meadow in front. Thinks it may 

 have been eighty years ago,"— that is about 

 1770. I was told that half a dozen deer were 

 recently seen in one field in Concord, and sin- 

 gle deer are almost every-day occurrences. 



Since about the year 1900 deer have been 

 appearing in increasing numbers in this sea- 

 shore region, but not until 1906 did I have 

 indubitable evidence of their presence in the 

 dunes. In May of that year I found the tracks 

 of two deer in the sand, but, although I occa- 

 sionally saw deer in the daytime elsewhere, 

 it was not until 1910, owing largely to their 

 nocturnal habits, that I actually saw the ani- 



40 



