Lion Ben of Elm Island

by Elijah Kellogg

Captain Rhines’s house stood at the head of a little cove, on the western side of a large bay, formed by a sweep in the main shore on the one side, and a point on the other, called (from the name of its owner, Isaac Murch) “Uncle Isaac’s Point.”

A small stream, that carried a saw and grist mill, found an outlet at the head of it, while the milldam served the inhabitants for a bridge. A number of islands were scattered over the surface of the bay, some of them containing hundreds of acres; others, a mere patch of rock and turf, fringed with the white foam of the breakers.

At a distance of six miles, broad off at sea, in a north-westerly direction, lay an island, called Elm Island, deriving its name from the great numbers of that tree which grew on its southern end.

As we shall have a great deal to do with this island, it is necessary to be particular in the description of it. It was about three miles in length, rocks and all, by two in width, running north-east and south-west, and parallel to the main land. From the eastern side, Captain Rhines’s house and the whole extent of the bay, and Uncle Isaac’s Point, were visible. Nature seemed to have lavished her skill upon this secluded spot.

The island was formed by two ridges of rock forming the line of the shore, the intervening valley dividing the island nearly in the middle. These ridges sloped gradually, on their inner sides, into fertile swales of deep, strong soil. The shores were perpendicular, dropping plump down into the ocean, being in some places forty feet above the level of the water. They were rent and seamed by the frost and waves; and, in the crevices of the rocks, the spruce and birch trees thrust their roots, and, clinging to the face of the cliff, struggled for life with waves and tempests.

The island would have been well nigh inaccessible, had not nature provided on the south-western end a most remarkable harbor. The line of perpendicular cliffs on the north-west ran the whole length of the island, against which, even in calm weather, the ground-swell of the ocean eternally beat. The westerly ridge, which was covered with soil of a moderate depth, gradually sloped as it approached the south-western end, till it terminated in a broad space occupying the whole width between the outer cliffs, and gradually sloping to the water’s edge. This portion of the island was bare of wood, and covered with green grass. The eastern ridge terminated in a long, broad point, covered with a growth of spruce trees, so dense that not a breath of wind could get through them, and, curving around, formed a beautiful cove, whose precipitous sides broke off the easterly sea and gales.

Into the head of this cove poured a brook, which, like a little boy, had a very small beginning. It came out from beneath the roots of two yellow birch trees that grew side by side in a little stream not more than two inches deep. As it ran on, it was joined by two other springs, that came out from the westerly ridge. The waters of these springs, together with the rains which slowly filtered through the forest, made quite a brook, which was never dry in the hottest weather.

At certain periods of the year the frost-fish and the smelts came up from the sea into the mouth of this brook. The cove, also, was full of flounders and minnows, eels and lobsters, and abounded in clams. The fish attracted the fish-hawks and herons, who filled the woods with their notes. Sometimes there would be ten blue herons’ nests on one great beech. The fish-hawks attracted the eagles, who obtained their principal living by robbing the fish-hawks. The wild geese, coots, whistlers, brants, and sea-ducks also came there to drink. This was not the natural habitat of the large blue heron, their food not being found there to any great extent, as the shores were too bold, and the waters too deep; their favorite feeding grounds are the broad shallow coves, where they can wade into the water with their long legs, and catch little fish as they come up on the flood tide; but they prefer to go after their food, rather than abandon this secluded spot, where they are secure from all enemies, and where the tall trees afforded these shy birds such advantages for building their nests. As for the fish-hawks, who dive and take their food from the water, it was just the place for them.

There was also on the eastern side of the western ridge a swamp, a most solitary place, so thickly timbered with enormous hemlocks and firs, mixed with white cedar, that it was almost as dark as twilight at noonday. Here dwelt an innumerable multitude of herons, where they had bred undisturbed for ages. Much smaller than the great blue heron, they built their nests in the low firs and cedars; and as they fed upon frogs, grasshoppers, mice, tadpoles, and minnows, they were not obliged to leave the island for their food: they were perfectly at home and happy.

They belonged to that species called, by naturalists, ardea nycticorax. The inhabitants called them squawks and flying foxes, from the noise they made. Like all the heron tribe, they are extremely quick of hearing, and feed mostly in the morning and evening twilight, half asleep through the day among the branches of the firs, standing on one leg. They make shallow nests of sticks, and lay three or four green eggs. You may walk through their haunts: all is still as death, apparently not a heron on the island, while thousands of them are right over your head, and all around you, listening to every step you take, the slightest noise of which they will hear, when you do not notice it yourself. Crack goes a dry stick under your foot; you catch your toe under a spruce root, and tumble down; instantly the intense stillness of the woods is broken by a flapping of wings and rustling of branches, succeeded by quaw, quaw, squawk, squawk, producing a chorus almost deafening. The sound they emit, which is a union of growl, bark, and scream, comes from their throat with such suddenness, breaking upon the deep silence of the woods, like the whirr of the partridge, that it will make you jump, though you are prepared for it and accustomed to it. Then you will see them, after flying to a safe distance, light on the tips of the fir limbs, holding themselves up with their wings on the bending branch, like a bobolink on a spear of herds-grass, from which they will in an instant crawl down into the middle of the tree, sitting close to the trunk, where it is impossible to see them. You must therefore shoot them when they are on the wing, or at the moment they light.