Long Island: A Natural History

Long Island: A Natural History by Robert Villani. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780810935914.

As well as the familiar human sprawl of paved highways and suburban development, Long Island has a vanishing world of native plants and animals: a land shaped by the sea, a mosaic of southern and northern species of life, a way station for millions of migrating birds, and a repository of unusual habitats of striking beauty. The text and photographs of this book document the barrier islands with their broad white-sand beaches that protect great bays and salt marshes which are among North Americas most productive marine environments. Readers are also taken inland to the sandy soil that supports the remnants of what was once the greatest grassland prairie in the east of the continent, the Hempstead Plain, as well as the highly specialized and extremely rare pine barrens and dwarf pine barrens. Also featured are the two glacial ridges along the spine of the island that gave rise to the North Fork and South Fork, and the beauty of their landscape of ponds, dunes and seaside cliffs.