PINNATED GROUSE. 207 
ruary, 1791, the year when, as a representative from my native county 
of Queens, I sat for the first time in a legislature. 
“The statute declares, among other things, that the person who 
shall kill any Heath-Hen within the counties of Suffolk or Queens, 
between the Ist day of April and the 5th day of October, shall, for 
every such offence, forfeit and pay the sum of two dollars and a half, 
to be recovered, with costs of suit, by any person who shall prosecute 
for the same, before any justice of the peace, in either of the said 
counties ; the one half to be paid to the plaintiff, and the other half to 
the overseers of the poor; and if any Heath-Hen, so killed, shall be 
found in the possession of any person, he shall be deemed guilty of 
the offence, and suffer the penalty. But it is provided that no defend- 
ant shall be convicted, unless the action shall be brought within three 
months after the violation of the law.* 
“The country selected by these exquisite birds requires a more 
particular description. You already understand it to be the midland 
and interior district of the island. The soil of this island is, generally 
speaking, a sandy or gravelly loam. In the parts less adapted to tillage, 
it is more of an unmixed sand. This is so much the case, that the 
shore of the beaches beaten by the ocean affords a material from 
which glass has been prepared. Siliceous grains and particles pre- 
dominate in the region chosen by the Heath-Hens or Grouse. Here 
there are no rocks, and very few stones of any kind. This sandy 
tract appears to be a dereliction of the ocean, but is, nevertheless, not 
doomed to total sterility. Many thousand acres have been reclaimed 
from the wild state, and rendered very productive to man; and within 
the towns frequented by these birds, there are numerous inhabitants, 
and among them, some of our most wealthy farmers. 
“But within the same limits, there are also tracts of great extent 
where men have no settlements, and others where the population is 
spare and scanty. These are, however, by no means naked deserts: 
they are, on the contrary, covered with trees, shrubs, and smaller plants. 
The trees are mostly pitch-pines of inferior size, and white oaks of a 
small growth. They are of a quality very fit for burning. Thousands 
of cords of both sorts of fire-wood are annually exported from these 
barrens. Vast quantities are occasionally destroyed by the fires which, 
through carelessness or accident, spread far and wide through the 
woods. The city of New York will probably, for ages, derive fuel 
from the Grouse grounds. The land, after having been cleared, yields 
to the cultivator poor crops. Unless, therefore, he can help it by 
_manure, the best disposition is to let it grow up to forest again. Ex- 
perience has proved, that, in a term of forty or fifty years, the new 
growth of timber will be fit for the axe. Hence it may be perceived, 
that the reproduction of trees, and the protection they afford to Heath- 
* The doctor has probably forgotten a circumstance of rather a ludicrous kind, 
that occurred at the passing of this law, and which was, not long ago, related to 
me by my friend Mr. Gardiner, of Gardiner’s Island, Long Island. ‘The bill was 
entitled, “An Act for the preservation of Heath-Hen, and other game.” The 
honest Chairman of the Assembly — no sportsman, I suppose — read the title, “ An 
Act for the preservation of Heathen, and other game!” which seemed to astonish 
the northern members, who could not see the propriety of preserving Indians, or 
any other heathen. 
