GARDINER'S ISLAND 47 



The island furnishes them with a safe retreat to which, year 

 after year, the}' may return and find tlieir bulky nests undis- 

 turbed, awaiting them, while the surrounding waters afford 

 an unfailing supply of food. Among the birds, they are the 

 lords of this land, if their title could be searched, even the 

 early, red skinned islanders would doubtless be found to 

 have been trespassers. 



If the Fish ilawks cannot prevent man's presence, they 

 can and do deny to any other member of the Hawk family 

 the right to share their summer home ; and while the Fish 

 Hawks are there, one may usually look in vain for Hawks of 

 other species on Gardiner 's Island. One Marsh Hawk is the 

 only raptor I have seen on there in summer, and Mr. Win- 

 throp Gardiner reports a Eed-tail. 



While on the island, therefore, the Fish Hawks appear 

 to have no enemies. The Terns sometimes dart at them 

 threateningly, but, beyond ducking their heads as the sharp- 

 billed, active birds sweep by, they pay no attention to this 

 source of annoyance. From the manner in which they pur- 

 sue the Black-crowned Night Herons and Green Herons, 

 one might imagine that they had an old score to settle with 

 these birds ; but the Herons are probably as innocent of of- 

 fense against the Fish Hawks as the latter are against the 

 Terns ; in each case, the attack is that of a more active or 

 stronger bird against a less agile or weaker one, and is 

 doubtless a purely malicious exhibition of power. 



iSince the publication of Alexander Wilson's "American 

 Ornithology," the Fish Hawks of Gardiner's Island have 

 figured in the literature of ornithology and it is characteris- 

 tic of their delightful home that, owing to the preserving in- 

 fluences of insular life, the birds are apparently nearly as 

 abundant there to-day as they were a hundred years ago. 



The volume (Vol. V.) of Wilson's work in which the Fish 

 Hawk is treated, appeared in 1812. In it the Mr. Gardiner 

 who was then proprietor of the island, is quoted as saying 

 that there were at "least three hundred nests of Fish 



