136 BEACH GRASS 



Hill; another, which lodged about five hundred 

 birds, was in one of the pitch pine thickets of the 

 Ipswich dunes. In November, 1916, I discovered 

 that the ground under and near the large thickets 

 of evergreens and hard woods on the southerly 

 side of Castle Hill close to Ipswich beach was 

 covered thickly with crow pellets and droppings. 

 I was not surprised, therefore, to find that the 

 afternoon flight of crows was directed towards 

 these thickets, and that the birds were passing 

 over the dunes in an opposite direction to that 

 taken in former years. Whether the great roosts 

 at Annisquam and West Gloucester have been 

 deserted or not I cannot say, but it is evident that 

 the larger number of birds have transferred their 

 winter nights' lodgings to Castle Hill. 



Twenty-five years ago the whole southerly 

 side of Castle and High Hills was pasture and 

 mowing land. The owner at that time began 

 planting trees on a large scale. ^ At first barely 

 visible in the grass these have grown to a height 

 of thirty or forty feet, and there is now a re- 

 spectable forest over twenty or thirty acres of 



1 This was in 1892, and the owner was the late John B. 

 Brown. The estate is now owned by Richard T, Crane Jr. 



