26 
PINNATED GROUS. 
“ 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 tbe ocean, affords a material from which glass has been pre- 
pared. Siliceous grains and particles predominate in the region 
chosen hy 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 numer- 
ous 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 de- 
rive fuel from the grouse-grounds. The land after having been 
cleared, yields to the cultivator poor crops. Unless therefore 
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 sports-man I suppose, read the title “ An 
Act for the preservation of Heathen and other Game !” which seemed to aston- 
ish the north members, who could not see the propriety of preserving Indians, 
or any other Heathen. 
