GARDINER'S ISLAND 



Morton wrote of New England birds in 1632, of ** cranes 

 there are a great store * * * tliev sometimes eate oui" 

 corne and doe pay for their presumption well enough * * * 

 a goodly bird in a dishe and no discomodity. " Of * ' swan- 

 nes," this early natural historian tells us, "there was a 

 great store at the seasons of the year." Other water-fowl 

 there were in countless myriads, and among them were Lab- 

 rador Ducks, AVhite Pelicans, and, not improbably, Great 

 Auks. Trees fell beneath the weight of roosting Wild Pig- 

 eons, which, in flight, darkened the air, and, in proper locali- 

 ties, Heath Hens, the eastern Prairie Chicken, abounded. 



It was not a day when close attention was paid to natur- 

 al science, and we shall never definitely know the conditions 

 of bird and mammal life which existed at the time this 

 country was colonized; but, from records similar to those 

 which Morton and others have left us, we gather that sur- 

 prising changes have occurred in the character of our bird- 

 life during the past three hundred years. Not only, as we 

 know too well in our own generation, have many species be- 

 come greatly reduced in numbers, but others have totally 

 disappeared, or are seen only at long intervals as waifs 

 from some region in which they have not as yet become ex- 

 terminated. 



The present-day ornithologist reads the time-discolored 

 pages of these pioneers with the keenest regret that the 

 scenes they describe can never be observed again. Imagine, 

 then, my exultation on discovering that, within one hundred 

 miles of our most populous city, there is still a considerable 

 area where, if there is not a "great store of cranes,"* the 



* Morton wrote of a true Crane of the genus Gviik; not of our Great Blue Heron 

 (Ardea herodins) to whict) the name ' Crane" is often applied. 



