STERNA HIRUNDO : WILSON's TERN. 36 1 



long by one across at the broadest part, and uninhabited. 

 The beach along the eastern shore is steep and bold, 

 and in the calmest summer weather the heavy surges 

 from the open ocean break upon the shifting sands with 

 an incessant sullen roar. Upon the Sound side shallows 

 and sand-bars extend for miles in every direction, and it 

 is said that at low tide one may wade across to Tucker- 

 nuck, more than a mile distant. The interior of the 

 island rises in rolling sand-hills, which are sparsely 

 clothed with beach-grass and a stunted growth of poison 

 ivy, while a few scattered clumps of bayberry-bushes 

 afford the nearest approach to arboreal vegetation. 

 Were it not for man, — who, alas ! must be ranked 

 as the greatest of all destroyers, — the Terns would here 

 find an asylum sufficiently secure from all foes. But 

 season after season the poor birds are daily robbed 

 of their eggs by the fishermen, while frequent yachting- 

 parties invade their stronghold and shoot them by hun- 

 dreds, either in wanton sport or for their wings, which 

 are presented to fair companions. Then the graceful 

 vessel spreads her snowy sails and glides blithely away 

 through the summer seas. All is gayety and merriment 

 on board, but among the barren sand-hills, fast fading in 

 the distance, many a poor bird is seeking its missing 

 mate ; many a downy little orphan is crying for the food 

 its dead mother can no longer supply ; many a pretty 

 speckled egg lies cold and deserted. Buzzing flies settle 

 upon the bloody bodies, and the tender young pine away 

 and die. A graceful pearl-tinted wing surmounts a 

 jaunty hat for a brief season, and then is cast aside, and 

 Muskegat lies forgotten, with the bones of the mother 

 and her offspring bleaching on the white sand. This is 

 no fancy sketch ; all over the world the sad destruction 



