424 Bailey, Plum Island Night Herons. [Ocu 



THE PLUM ISLAND NIGHT HERONS. 



BY S. WALDO BAILEY. 



For a region which on casual or hasty observation appears to 

 be barren and dreary, devoid of many of those features which go 

 to make the attractive and picturesque in nature, I have found on 

 intimate acquaintance, Plum Island lying off the northeast coast 

 of Massachusetts, to be a most interesting and fruitful locality for 

 study and research. 



Separated from the mainland by a broad stretch of level marsh 

 and several tidal creeks, on the north, the latter widening into a 

 broad sound farther south, the island extends from the mouth of 

 the Merrimac River on the north some nine miles southward to 

 Ipswich River not far from the northerly base of Cape Ann, but 

 averages scarcely half a mile in width. 



Geologically it is a series of wave washed, wind blown sand dunes, 

 overlaying by no great depth submerged drumlins, the inundation of 

 these being due to the slow subsidence of the coast line since the 

 glacial epoch. The dunes on the landward side are bordered by an 

 irregular narrow strip of marsh, cut by numerous small intersecting 

 ditches and sinuous tidal creeks. Bordering the mainland, broad 

 stretches of marsh come down to meet these creeks. Nearly the 

 whole of the marshy area is covered completely by every monthly 

 high run of tides. 



Thoreau writing of the region over sixty-five years ago described 

 it as a place of "dreary bluffs of sand and valleys plowed by the 

 wind, where you might expect to discover the bones of a caravan .... 

 probably Massachusetts does not furnish a more grand and dreary 

 walk. On the sea side there are only a distant sail and a few coots 

 to break the grand monotony. A solitary stake stuck up or a 

 sharper sandhill than usual is remarkable as a landmark for miles ; 

 while for music you hear only the ceaseless sound of the surf and 

 the dreary peep of the beach birds." 



Conditions have changed but little since Thoreau's time. A 

 small summer colony at the northern end of the Island connected 

 with Newburyport by trolley, and a hotel and a few summer cot- 



