MILLER : BEACH MOUSE OF MUSKEGET ISLAND. 
77 
widest part about half a mile across. It is broadest at the east 
end, but toward the west it tapers gradually and irregularly, at 
the same time bending into an imperfect and shallow crescent, 
the convexity of which is directed north and toward Nantucket 
Sound. The south-western end of the island extends as a slender 
tongue of sand called South Point and is separated from Smith’s 
Beach (not shown in figure 2) by a narrow channel. South 
Point is exposed to the full force of the tide and waves, and as 
a result is constantly changing in form. When Muskeget was 
visited by the United States Coast Survey in 1887, South Point 
had the form indicated by the dotted lines in figure 2. Afterward 
the outermost prong was washed away, all but the tip which 
remained as South Point Island. This accident saved the Muskeget 
beach mouse from extinction. 
My first visit to Muskeget was early in J uly, 1892. The island is, as 
Mr. Allen describes it, low and sandy, in fact a mere dry sand bar, 
nowhere rising more than fifteen feet above high water mark. The 
surface is irregularly ridged and furrowed, the general trend of the 
furrows being nearly east and west, or parallel to the main axis of 
the island. Some of the deeper hollows contain small fresh-water 
ponds or marshes, and there is a salt marsh at the margin of the 
cove on the south side, but the island is elsewhere perfectly dry and 
covered with coarse shifting sand. In spite of its barrenness Mus¬ 
keget has a varied flora, embracing most of the sand-loving plants 
found on the coast of southern New England. In July, 1892, I 
noticed the following species of flowering plants, mostly in bloom at 
the time, and the list could be greatly augmented by observations 
made either earlier or later in the summer. 
Typlia angustifolia Linn.— Common in one of the small fresh¬ 
water marshes near the east end of the island. 
Zostera marina Linn.— Abundant in the shallow water protected 
from the action of the waves. 
Ammophilaj arenaria Linn.— Abundant everywhere on the dryer 
parts of the island — save for the roots of this grass there would be 
little or nothing to hold in place the coarse, constantly shifting sand. 
Spartina patens (Ait.).— In the salt marsh on the south shore. 
Poajfava Linn. — A small patch in one of the swamps. 
Poa pratensis Linn.—A few plants near house. 
Eleocharis pahistris (Linn.). 
Scirpns americanus Pers. 
