Читать книгу The Ipswich Sparrow and Its Summer Home - Jonathan Jr. Dwight - Страница 8

Table of Contents

It is not within the scope of the present paper to enter into a discussion of the whole fauna^[10] of the island, and I therefore pass at once to some of the higher groups. Of the mammals there is little to be said, for the once abundant Walrus (Odobœnus rosmarus (Linn.)) has long since been exterminated, and, with the exception of a couple of species of Seals, there are no mammals of any sort found there today, save those artificially introduced by man. Great numbers of the Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina L.) are resident. They were in large herds or smaller groups, basking along the beach or disporting in the lake. At the time of my visit many of the new-born young were seen, and could be easily captured. Sometimes they were found straying inland, where they perished from hunger or from the dogs that delighted to worry them. When a herd was approached the old Seals would flounder down the beach into the water, leaving behind them a few of the mottled young either sound asleep or making no effort to escape. No great fear was shown by the adults, but they all evinced great curiosity, and they would follow me for considerable distances, swimming along with wide-opened eyes, their shiny black heads ranging into a semi-circle just beyond the breakers if I paused to watch them.

Occasionally I saw small groups of the larger Harp Seal (Phoca grœnlandica Fabr.), the young of which are born on the bars in the month of January. I was shown the pure white skins of the young. They are found only in small numbers.

When we consider the probable origin of Sable Island, an up-building of grains of sand from the depths of the ocean, and the changes through which it has passed, the absence of mammals upon it is not surprising. The history of the absolute extermination, often directly or indirectly by the hand of man, at one period or another, of every introduced species including the domestic animals, is a striking fact. The life tenure of each has also depended on a limited food supply and the severity of the winters. Even the wild ponies, of which there are several hundred, succumb when their pastures are buried by sand-drift. Only last winter (1893-94) scores died rather than venture from under the protecting banks and face a long-continued storm. Sheep do not survive the winters. The extermination of the wild cattle and foxes that occupied the island in the seventeenth century has already been mentioned elsewhere. The wild swine were destroyed in 1814, because of their ghoulish propensities in times of wreck. Even the inhabitants themselves have occasionally been reduced to the extremity of eating horse flesh. There have been plagues of rats in consequence of the frequent wrecks. The stores of the first superintendent were so extensively demolished by these pests, that for a time he and his men were actually threatened with starvation. Rabbits, ordinary pet rabbits, were first introduced over fifty years ago, and apparently survived many years. It is said that about 1827 a Snowy Owl took up his abode on the island, feasting upon them and remaining throughout the summer. Towards 1880 some cats were turned loose, which fell upon the rabbits and rats and rapidly exterminated them. Shortly afterwards they themselves succumbed to winter hardships. In 1882 rabbits were again introduced, and became so abundant and such a nuisance that cats were again imported from Halifax to destroy them, seven in the summer of 1889 and thirty more in 1890. While the cats that survived the winter were still feasting upon the remnant of the rabbits, seven red foxes from the mainland were introduced in June, 1891, and in a single season they made an end of all the rabbits and the cats. The foxes have greatly multiplied, and are now exterminating the birds, sucking the eggs of the wild Ducks, and devouring the Terns which they catch at night on their nests. That the Ipswich Sparrow has been on the bill of fare of all these rats and cats and foxes (and prior to 1814, very likely, the wild swine) we can hardly doubt,—will it be spared their fate?