JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL vSOCIETY. 95 



is common. Here in the open, too, and near the shore, are bay- 

 berry, sweet-fern, staghorn sumach, and poison ivy, all familiar 

 shrubs to a Massachusetts man. At the time of my visit the field 

 chick weed {Ccrastiian arvcnse) was in full bloom, scattered over 

 these pastures in patches of white. In the woods, or along their 

 edges, the wnld red cherry and the shad-bush were in blossom, and 

 the swamps were in some places full of purple rhodora and in others 

 white with buckbean in flower. The season on Monhegan is late in 

 the spring and correspondingly short and condensed, such flowers 

 as cherry blossoms and the dwarf Solomon's seal {Maianthermim 

 Canadciise) , which in Massachusetts come three or four weeks apart, 

 being here found at the same time. 



The resident fauna is somewhat restricted as to number of spe- 

 cies, at least in the higher groups, doubtless on account of the 

 insular conditions. Of mammals I saw none at all, a'nd the only 

 native species I heard of there was the muskrat, though domestic 

 rats infest some of the outlying rocks, and the woods are said to 

 harbor many cats which have run wild. I found no reptiles, and 

 the only batrachians I observed were a colony of green frogs i^Rana 

 damata), twanging their banjo strings in a small ice pond, where 

 they had been introduced from the mainland for the purpose of 

 destroying the mosquitoes. It seemed strange not to see a single 

 squirrel and to hear neither the peeping of hylas nor the trilling of 

 toads. 



The island at the time of my visit was fairly well populated 

 with birds, but the number of species represented was not large. It 

 is very possible that some of the summer residents had not yet ar- 

 rived, for I added one species to my list on the morning of my de- 

 parture, the Red-eyed Vireo, but it seems probable that most of 

 them had got there by the 6th of June and that the list, therefore, 

 shows practically the entire breeding population, together with a few 

 species which were doubtless only migrants. The list, however, 

 relates to but a single season and can only be regarded as a tenta- 

 tive or "preliminary" list of the summer birds of the island. 



