kind; it was as if a man had been exiled to Siberia. Still,
argued the young mayor, an ugly place is ugly only because it is not
beautiful. And beautiful he determined this island should be.

One day the young mayor-judge called together his council. "We must have
trees," he said; "we can make this island a spot of beauty if we will!"
But the practical seafaring men demurred; the little money they had was
needed for matters far more urgent than trees.

"Very well," was the mayor's decision--and little they guessed what the
words were destined to mean--"I will do it myself." And that year he
planted one hundred trees, the first the island had ever seen.

"Too cold," said the islanders; "the severe north winds and storms will
kill them all."

"Then I will plant more," said the unperturbed mayor. And for the fifty
years that he lived on the island he did so. He planted trees each year;
and, moreover, he had deeded to the island government land which he
turned into public squares and parks, and where each spring he set out
shrubs and plants.

Moistened by the salt mist the trees did not wither, but grew
prodigiously. In all that expanse of turbulent sea--and only those who
have seen the North Sea in a storm know how turbulent it can be--there
was not a foot of ground on which the birds, storm-driven across the
water-waste, could rest in their flight. Hundreds of dead birds often
covered the surface of the sea. Then one day the trees had grown tall
enough to look over the sea, and, spent and driven, the first birds came
and rested in their leafy shelter. And others came and found protection,
and gave their gratitude vent in song. Within a few years so many birds
had discovered the trees in this new island home that they attracted the
attention not only of the native islanders but also of the people on the
shore five miles distant, and the island became famous as the home of
the rarest and most beautiful birds. So grateful were the birds for
their resting-place that they chose one end of the island as a special
spot for the laying of their eggs and the raising of their young, and
they fairly peopled it. It was not long before ornithologists from
various parts of the world came to "Eggland," as the farthermost point
of the island came to be known, to see the marvellous sight, not of
thousands but of hundreds of thousands of bird-eggs.

A pair of storm-driven nightingales had now found the island and mated
there; their w