284 Bird - Lore 



In a modern poet's verse you will find the word used in connection with 

 beach, a more common feature of shore landscape: 



"But Hermod rode with Niord, whom he took 

 To show him spits and beaches of the sea." 



— Matthew Arnold: Balder Dead. iii. 



A year ago, you may remember that we had a picture of "the inner har- 

 bor." Beyond this nearly land-locked harbor extends the larger outer harbor, 

 which joins the great Sound and through that the Atlantic Ocean some ninety 

 miles from the point to be described. Between the inner and the outer harbor 

 is a sand spit. In fact, the harbors would be one were it not for this narrow 

 strip of sandy shore which so nearly separates them. It almost seems as if 

 barely enough space was left open for the tide to run through or an occasional 

 boat of small dimensions. 



The spit at first sight looks commonplace and of little interest, a stretch 

 of sand, some rather scanty beach-grass, and one or two wind-tossed shrubs 

 to break its monotonous level. In length it is a little more than a third of a 

 mile, and its varying width ("80 meters at its western end" and "15 meters 

 at its eastern end"), which averages about 40 meters, or 131 feet, gives it the 

 appearance of a tapering point. Along its center, lengthwise from west to 

 east, the sandy soil is heaped up gradually by debris which eroding winds 

 wear away from the bluffs on the western coast of the outer harbor, and south- 

 bound currents carry as far as the protected area where the outer harbor joins 

 the inner. Rising a little above the beach edge on the north side and the inner 

 edge which is covered with marsh grass, thriving abundantly on the muddy 

 shore-line of the inner harbor, this slightly higher crest of the spit has been 

 called "the desert area" to distinguish it from the pebbly outer beach and the 

 muddy, grassy inner shore-line. Upon looking more carefully at this surprising 

 point of land, one finds that the sand on different parts of it is either finer or 

 coarser, according to its location. In fact, one might spend much time study- 

 ing the geological formation found here before being able to describe the spit 

 accurately. The animals and plants too distributed over the sand spit vary 

 much more than the casual observer would expect, and their number exceeds 

 by far any hasty estimate. 



At falling tide may be seen the lower beach, which remains covered at high 

 tide. There are also at certain times unusually low tides, called "spring tides," 

 when more of this part of the beach with its rich marine life is exposed for a 

 brief period almost in plain view. A large annelid worm lives here, called 

 Nereis limbata, which means daughter of the sea-god Nereus, having a frill 

 of limblike appendages along its sides. More common worms are found 

 in greater abundance. The primitive vertebrate Balanoglossus is occa- 

 sionally met with here in the edge of the "shallow sea." There are, 

 "sessile'' forms of life, both plants and animals, as well as "crawling,'' 



