251 The long flight back 



the heath hen, in spring, has given to this strange region! At 

 first sight a visitor has thought the seemingly limitless miles of 

 plain both dreary and uninteresting. But not for long. The most 

 prosaic scientist, full of a passion for metric measurements of 

 feathers or Latin labels, has lain among the black scrub oak in 

 the white mists of a chill April morning, and has returned to 

 write poetry. The meticulous observations and Latin terms ap- 

 pear modestly, softened by a cloak of mystery. We read of birds 

 appearing "as if by magic/' We are told that the call of the 

 heath hen did not rise or fall, but "ended in the air like a 

 Scotch ballad." And a naturalist who is also a writer has heard 

 in the peeping of the pinkletinks the voice of Ariel, and in the 

 witch dances and goblin cries of the heath hen the grosser spirits 

 of the Island. 



And so it is that the extinction of the heath hen has taken 

 away part of the magic of the Vineyard. This is the added loss 

 of the Island. There is a void in the April dawn, there is an 

 expectancy unanswered, there is a tryst not kept 



