20 South Beach, 



When Thoreau lived on Staten Island in 1843, residing 

 with Mr. William Emerson on the Richmond road, he 

 rambled on this shore, and he tells us about the dogs that 

 used to bark at him as he tramped along. He says : 

 " 1 used to see packs of half-wild dogs haunting the lonely 

 beach on the south shore of Staten Island, in New York 

 Bay, for the sake of the carrion there cast up ; and I 

 remember that once, when for a long time I had heard a 

 furious barking in the tall grass of the marsh, a pack of 

 half a dozen large dogs burst forth on to the beach, pur- 

 suing a little one, which ran straight to me for protection, 

 and I afforded it with some stones, though at some risk to 

 myself; but the next day the little one was the first to 

 bark at me." 



Mr. Aug. R. Grote, the naturalist, and author of some 

 pleasing poems, says in his " Check- List of North Ameri- 

 can Moths " : " What a range of thought one can run 

 over catching butterflies along the hedgerows. I come 

 back to my first surprise, when, as a boy, I caught Cicin- 

 delas on the south beach of Staten Island. I saw that 

 there were numerous questions hanging about unsolved as 

 I was bottling my captures." 



Though these tiger-beetles still fly on the South Beach, 

 each July seeing their return, yet the scene has changed 

 considerably. Indeed we cannot ramble along the same 

 shore that Dankers and Sluyter and Thoreau did, for the 

 beach of a hundred, or even of fifty, years ago is now far 

 out under the waves. It has been estimated that each 

 century brings with it about twenty inches depression, and 

 owing to the flat character of the country, many acres of 



