THE UNIQUE ISLAND OF MOUNT DESERT 



birds. For the birds of inland and of 

 tidal waters the place is singularly favor- 

 able, while the vertical cliffs may yet call 

 back to nest the raven and the eagle. 



No northern situation was ever better 

 fitted to grow a great variety of fruiting 

 plants for bird food. The remarkable 

 horticultural qualities of the island have 

 long been recognized, and both wild and 

 cultivated shrubs fruit there with an ex- 

 traordinary profusion. In the deep val- 

 ley, especially, which extends from the 

 Bar Harbor region, and the great wooded 

 heath to the south of it, through the wild 

 mountain gorge with tarn-like bottom 

 marsh and open pools that makes a nat- 

 ural highway for the birds between the 

 northern and southern shores, there are 

 wonderful sites for bird shelter-woods 

 and bird-gardens. 



In the fertile soil washed down into 

 this valley from the granite heights above, 

 open spaces may be planted with the na- 

 tive food-providing shrubs and trees, such 

 as the alternate-leaved cornel, the wild 

 pear that is so beautiful in its springtime 

 flowering, the red-berried ilexes and 

 richly fruiting thorns that bring such 

 glowing color into the northern fall, in- 

 terspersed with thick bushes suited for 

 bird-nesting. 



Here, too, there are excellent oppor- 

 tunities for growing along the banks of 

 streams and ponds, near either entrance 

 to this gorge, the seed-bearing herbaceous 

 plants on which the marsh and water 

 birds subsist, and an admirable chance 

 for creating islands upon flooded marsh- 

 lands which will form ideal breeding 

 places for both land and water birds. 

 Water in every form is here abundant — 

 in springs and streams and open pools — 

 while the deep, rich soil of the swamp 

 and swale already produces plants in 

 plenty to entice the birds that haunt such 

 places, and little more is needed than to 

 give these plants a chance to make their 

 best development. 



All through this valley and the adjoin- 

 ing one to the eastward, with its old 

 beaver-pool beneath the wooded side of 

 Newport Mountain, admirable opportuni- 

 ties may be found for such sheltered feed- 

 ing places. Many more of the insect-eat- 

 ing song and other birds of New England 



farms and gardens which winter in the 

 south might readily be led to make their 

 summer home upon the island, while the 

 great variety of northern winter birds 

 which migrate through this region would 

 make it possible, at little cost, to feed and 

 assemble here large numbers of them also 

 in many species. 



A BIRD STUDY STATION IS NE;e;de;d 



And here, of all places, an admirable 

 opportunity presents itself for the estab- 

 lishment of a bird study station, combined 

 with bird protection, such as has proved 

 so valuable in Germany and has revolu- 

 tionized the methods formerly in use 

 there for the encouragement and protec- 

 tion of bird life. 



_ At such a station the best methods of 

 bird protection, food supply, and propa- 

 gation would be studied out and given 

 practical trial, and from such a station 

 the results obtained would be published 

 widely for the benefit of the country, 

 while the interest and practical impor- 

 tance of the work done would, when once 

 the undertaking was established, bring 

 people in number to the island in summer 

 time to study the methods practiced, or 

 the birds themselves attracted to the spot. 



Work along this line is greatly needed 

 in America, to whose bird life the results 

 obtained in Germany have proved, on ex- 

 periment, to be only partly applicable; 

 and carried out at Mount Desert, where 

 and to the adjoining coast and islands so 

 strong a tide of summer travel sets each 

 year, and where so many people of in- 

 fluence and education, drawn from the 

 country over, spend their summers, such 

 work would have exceptional value, apart 

 from the place's natural opportunity. 



Nor would the presence of people in 

 the reservation tend to drive out the 

 birds, provided they were not molested, 

 but help rather in extending the interest 

 in bird life and knowledge of the birds. 

 Some of the wilder birds are even now 

 learning to live in cities where they are 

 protected, and many birds might easily 

 be attracted to a region so favorable for 

 their shelter, sustenance, and nesting as 

 this. 



Mount Desert Island lies in the midst 

 of a great chain of lesser isles spread 



