A Colony of Herons 



helps to redeem the landscape reputation of 

 this generally unimpressive waste of sand and 

 flatness. There is a breeziness of its own, quite 

 independent of any currents of air, in the 

 rugged scenery of this northwest shore — numer- 

 ous bays deeply indenting the coast, vigorous 

 hills and pleasing valleys, with a luxuriant 

 growth of forests and herbage that show a veg- 

 etable ambition painfully wanting on the arid 

 plains of the southern and eastern portions of 

 this immense Connecticut breakwater. In this 

 town of Roslyn lived for many years William 

 Cullen Bryant, the legacy of whose name is a 

 proud thing for Roslyn. The devotion of the 

 Roslynites to the memory of Bryant has been 

 doubly lasting and sincere, without doubt, for 

 the reason that the poet proved himself a bene- 

 factor as well as an ornament, by his donation 

 to the town of a substantial library. 



A few years ago this flock of herons lived 

 several miles distant from their present quar- 

 ters ; but the people living in the neighborhood 

 were so annoyed by their disagreeable clamor, 

 that they drove them away, whereupon they 

 betook themselves to this remote and wooded 

 swamp, covering an area of ten or twelve acres. 

 Yet even in this out-of-the-way place they were 

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