of new things lomo to the surface, js it were Strange birli^ 

 congregate where any food is available, and all manner of foot 

 tracks appear on the snow The hosts of spring, summer, and fall 

 have gone, and the vegetative cover has gone, but now one sees 

 places where creatures like otters, moles, and mice go about 

 their business, clearly typewritten on the glistening surface. The 

 snow on the surfaces of ponds is crisscrossed by rabbit tracks 

 and the plunged hoofs of deer. From somewhere come all man- 

 ner of living things that are not otherwise seen. Every so many 

 years huge pure white owls appear, wandering south from their 

 tundra fastnesses due to a sudden shortage of lemmings, their 

 natural food. They sit on fence posts and glare menacingly with 

 vast yellow eyes. 



But there is one part of Appalachia that never folds in upon 

 itself with the coming of the cold. This is the short coastal strip 

 from the St. John to the Hudson rivers. Winter life is much more 

 active from the latter south to Georgia, but that is another prov- 

 ince which we will visit later. (The outstanding part of what is 

 otherwise the coast of Appalachia — namely. Long Island, Mar- 

 tha's Vineyard, Cape Cod. and fabulous Nantucket— is really a 

 northern extension of that province, which we call the Northeast 

 Coastal Fringe.) That part of Appalachia which borders the sea 

 is heavily indented, low in the south with reed-filled marshes 

 between gentle rocky headlands, and almost fjordlike in the 

 north with steep cliffs, sandy or pebbly coves between, and not 

 a few craglike islands offshore. It is the abode of typically 

 nonhern coastal oceanic life, and was once that of a now extinct 

 giant breed of beachcombing mink and of galaxies of wading 

 and diving birds. Endless schools of right whales, porpoises, and 

 some dolphins used also to migrate up and down this coast. 



Today, we have regretfully to tell the outsider that he will be 

 hard put to it even to get to the seashore from the land and may 

 be either arrested or shouted at for daring to put a toe into salt 

 water. Almost the whole coast is "enclosed." barricaded, or 

 contaminated in one way or another. Instead of whales you see 

 an endless parade of small craft, and in place of the delicate 

 little wading birds and the diving ducks you may more likely 

 see human youngsters, and instead of the great beach mink there 

 are pet dogs and stray cats. This is a sad picture, but let us face 

 the fact; it is an ecological fact and is, we can only presume, a 

 natural phase in the history of this land. And yet, despite this 

 singularly uninteresting present-day fauna, one may still find all 

 manner of delights if one can get onto the shore. Thus I have a 

 remarkable friend who. with his growing son, spends a great 

 deal of time beachcombing, even today, and who brings back 

 from every one of his overnight expeditions bags full of natural 

 treasures, as well as coins of colonial vintage and other human 

 artifacts, and endless rolls of film showing wild animals that the 

 average New Englander has never seen and few New Yorkers 

 have ever heard of. 



PASSING HORDES 



At this point we may introduce a particular marvel of nature 

 that will occupy mudi more of our attention in a later chapter. 

 This is the mystery of migration, a phenomenon in which the 

 wading birds of Appalachian shores and estuaries play a key 

 role. Migration is an annual process, not to be confused with 

 either immigration or emigration, both of which occur in the 



An oyster fungus (Pleurotus ostreatus) grozvm^ on an aspen 

 trunk. Many fungi, such as this, are edible. 



world of animals as well as among men. However, migration 

 does not mean just a going to one place at one time of the year 

 and a coming back to the first location at another time. It is 

 enormously more complicated, as we shall see when we come 

 to meander along the coastal inlets of the southern part of the 

 east coast. Nevertheless we have one of the major "flyways" of 

 the migrating birds running down the east side of Appaladiia, 

 where countless hosts from great eagles to tiny warblers struggle 

 back and forth twice a year between the far north and the 

 tropics, navigating — as is now known in the case of some 

 warblers at least— by the stars. But also there is an all-year- 

 round passing of other millions along the coast. Here all kinds 

 of birds — and fish, for that matter— move constantly north or 

 south, at all times of the year, often in contrary streams, while 

 others come to rest here and some go all the way south to 

 Argentina. These multitudes we shall meet presently, but the 

 outsider must not forget that, if he can get to the coast of 

 Appalachia today, he can spend the rest of the year just sitting 

 and watching a stream of life passing by as it has done through- 

 out the millennia since the mile-high barrier of ice departed this 

 section of the earth's crust. 



