The forces which punched a hole in Norton Point and opened Edgartown harbor to the Atlantic Ocean might present a headache for town officials, but from an ecological viewpoint, they have all the benefits of a big natural spring cleaning.

Now a genetic study of the skins of scores of heath hens, all of them from the Vineyard, shows that the Island bird, although it looked and behaved much like its supposed parent species in the Midwest, was a wholly distinctive creature. Genetically it was more different from the greater western prairie chicken - that supposed parent species - than the Midwestern bird is from any other family member in its genus, which includes the lesser prairie chicken, the endangered Attwater's prairie chicken of eastern Texas, and even the sharp-tailed grouse. It is possible that instead of being a subspecies of the prairie chicken - which scientists have considered it to be since it was first typed in the last years of the nineteenth century - the heath hen might have been a species unto itself.

A flap has arisen in Aquinnah over the illegal shooting of a large number of cormorants earlier this month on tribal land. The killings took place near the historic herring run, the oldest operating herring run on the Island. The incident raised questions about how laws are enforced by the tribe.

Purple Gallinule Lands on Island From the South

By E. Vernon Laux

At noon on New Year's Day, Stephen Carlson of Oak Bluffs made a remarkable discovery.

Mr. Carlson had just left his home on a dirt road when, upon reaching the pavement, he noticed an object in the road. Dazed and confused, walking and standing in the middle of the road, was a very odd bird. As if recovering from a celebratory New Year's Eve, this bird was bobbing and weaving.