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present about tliirty of its active members, several of (hem being 

 among its founders or the earliest enrolled upon its list. After 

 a beautiful sail down the harbor and among the islands, the com- 

 pany found ample arrangements made for them at Ilinghara by 

 the committee, and were conveyed in carriages along tlie new 

 road in the direction of Nantasket Beach. This road, opened 

 two years since, presents a number of interesting features to the 

 student of nature. 



Mr. Thomas T. Bouve, the Chairman of the Committee of 

 Arrangements, and to whom the Society were indebted for the 

 complete success of the occasion, was most earnest in his en- 

 deavors to call attention to every object of interest and instruction 

 upon the route. Upon passing through the woods, not far from 

 the Old Colony House, he pointed out several nests of the Night 

 Heron, (^Ardea nycticorax,) built of sticks, high up in the trees. 

 He remarked that these were the only Night Herons to be found 

 anywhere in the vicinity of Boston, with the exception of those 

 at Fresh Pond, and that tl)ere was danger of their complete 

 extermination, if the young were taken and destroyed by people 

 in the neighborhood, as has been done lately. Some distance 

 further on, were seen the remains of submerged trees, supposed 

 to be cedars, which had been imbedded in the peat, and which 

 were exposed in the construction of the road. 



The President gave' some account of these remains, consisting 

 of large stumps and roots, buried in salt-water peat. The swamp 

 in which the trees grew, was somewhat below tide water, and in 

 consequence of the breaking down of the barriers, the communi- 

 cation with tlie ocean had been made ; and the whole tract, 

 consisting of many acres, formerly covered with trees, is now 

 regularly flowed by the high tides. This is one of several in- 

 stances in which the ocean has made its inroads upon the shore 

 in this neighborhood. The most recent breach occurred a few 

 years since, near Pleasant Beach, during the great storm which 

 carried away the Minot Lighthouse ; the sea barrier was broken 

 through, and every tract of fresh water was invaded, and, unless 

 soon reclaimed, will become permanently a part of the domain 

 of the sea. 



He also called attention to an Indian cemetery, on the south- 

 eastern slope of Atlantic Hill, near Nantasket Beach. 



