106 



PINNATED GROUS 



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 predominate 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 ex- 

 tent where men have no settlements, and others where the popula- 

 tion is spare and scanty. These are however, by no means, naked 

 desarts. 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 oc- 

 casionally destroyed by the fires which through carelessness or acci- 

 dent spread far and wide through the woods. The city of New York 



* The doctor has probably forgotten a circumstance of rather a ludicrous kind that oc^ 

 curred 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 pre- 

 servation of Heath-hen and other Game." The honest chairman of the assembly, no sports- 

 man 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 pre- 

 serving Indians, or any other Heathen. 



