THE IPSWICH SPARROW. 



15 



their shiny black heads ranging into a semi-circle just beyond the breakers 

 if I paused to watch them. 



Occasionally I saw small groups of the larger Harp Seal {Plioca grcen- 

 landicaYixhv.), the young of which are born on the bars in the month of 

 January. I was shown the pure white skins of the young. They are found 

 only in small numbers. 



When we consider the probable origin of Sable Island, an up-building 

 of grains of sand from the depths of the ocean, and the changes through 

 which it has passed, the absence of mammals upon it is not surprising. The 

 history of the absolute extermination, often directly or indirectly by the hand 

 of man, at one period or another, of every introduced species including the 

 domestic animals, is a striking fact. The life tenure of each has also 

 depended on a limited food supply and the severity of the winters. Even 

 the wild ponies, of which there are several hundred, succumb when their 

 pastures are buried by sand-drift. Only last winter (1893-94) scores 

 died rather than venture from under the protecting banks and face a 

 long-continued storm. Sheep do not survive the winters. The extermina- 

 tion of the wild cattle and foxes that occupied the island in the seventeenth 

 century has already been mentioned elsewhere. The wild swine were 

 destroyed in 1814, because of their ghoulish propensities in times of wreck. 

 Even the inhabitants themselves have occasionally been reduced to the 

 extremity of eating horse flesh. There have been plagues of rats in con- 

 sequence of the frequent wrecks. The stores of the first superintendent 

 were so extensively demolished by these pests, that for a time he and his 

 men were actually threatened with starvation. Rabbits, ordinary pet 

 rabbits, were first introduced over iit'ty years ago, and apparently survived 

 many years. It is said that about 1827 a Snowy Owl took up his abode on 

 the island, feasting upon them and remaining throughout the summer. 

 Towards 1880 some cats were turned loose, which fell upon the rabbits and 

 rats and rapidly exterminated them. Shortly afterwards they themselves 

 succumbed to winter hardships. In 1882 rabbits were again introduced, 

 and became so abundant and sucli a nuisance that cats were again imported 

 from Halifax to destroy them, seven in the summer of 1889 and thirty more 

 in 1890. While the cats that survived the winter were still feasting upon 

 the remnant of the rabbits, seven red foxes from the mainland were intro- 

 duced in June, 1891, and in a single season they made an end of all the 

 rabbits and the cats. The foxes have greatly multiplied, and are now 

 exterminating the birds, sucking the eggs of the wild Ducks, and devouring 

 the Terns which they catch at night on their nests. That the Ipswich 

 Sparrow has been on the bill of fare of all these rats and cats and foxes 

 (and prior to 1814, very likely, the wild swine) we can hardly doubt, — 

 will it be spared their fate ? 



