12 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 
The extremes of temperature encountered by me were 60° F. on June 9 
and 4o° F. on June 13, and I can assure my readers that, with a 
temperature seldom over 50° F., winter clothing and an overcoat did not 
come amiss. 
The violence of the wind and the fury of winter storms can only be 
estimated by the changed aspect of hill and valley after a long-continued 
gale. I encountered one when the wind attained a velocity of over fifty 
miles an hour, and I can now realize what it must have been on one 
occasion when for twenty-four hours the anemometer registered a rate of 
not less than sixty-four miles an hour, with bursts that reached eighty- 
seven. 
FLora. 
It was impossible to study satisfactorily the flora of Sable Island, for 
at the time of my visit few of the plants had more than just opened their 
earliest buds, and of the species collected, many could not be positively 
identified even by so able a botanist as Dr. N. L. Britton of Columbia College, 
who was kind enough to make the attempt for me and to furnish the scientific 
names. The most abundant production is the Beach-grass (Ammophila 
arenaria (L.)) which grows, just as it does on our sandy coasts, in tufts 
and patches all over the island, from the edges of the low bluffs under- 
mined by the sea to the most inland ponds in the vicinity of which it 
mingles with other grasses, sedges and rushes. Some of these could be 
identified, as Juncus ballicus littoralis Engelm. and Juncoides campestre 
(L.), but there are also some unrecognizable species of Carex and Panicum. 
Timothy (Phleum pratense L.) and Red-top Grass (Agrostis alba vulgaris 
With.), as well as Red Clover (7Z7rdfolium pratense L.), have been 
cultivated near the stations, and White Clover (7. repens L.) is frequently 
met with, but man’s influence has been at work on the island for so many 
centuries that it is almost impossible to draw the line between indigenous 
species, if such there be, and those artificially introduced. Next to the 
Beach-grass, the heather-like, alpine Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum L.), 
with its black little berries, vies with the sturdier Juniper (/Jun7perus nana 
Willd.) in abundance. The thick, yielding carpet that these two prostrate 
evergreen shrubs spread over a large portion of the island does much to 
preserve it from the fierce attacks of the wind, and to soften the bleak 
and desolate aspect it might otherwise present. To walk or ride over this 
bed of matted boughs gives one the sensation of being upon heavy tapestry 
laid upon a rough and hummocky surface. The hills and valleys at the 
