"On a hot, fair day, the twelfth of September, 1609, and a small crew of Dutch and English sailors rode the flood tide up a great , past a long, wooded island at latitude 40º 48' north, on the edge of the North American continent. Locally the island was called Mannahatta, or "Island of Many Hills." … Mannahatta had more per acre than , more native plant species per acre than , and more birds than the . Mannahatta housed wolves, s, s, s, , and s; whales, s, , and the occasional visited its harbor. Millions of birds of more than a hundred and fifty different species flew over the island annually on transcontinental s; millions of fish—, , , , and –swam past the island up the and in its streams during annual rites of spring."