The fact that they are in Greater New York does not seem to bother them much down in this happy valley, at least it hasn't changed their mode of life apparently. The last time we were there a well-tanned Long Islander was buying some duck loads; he said he was merely going out after a few snipe, but he ordered No. 5's. [Illustration: New York City Up in the Beginnings of the Bronx Regions--Skating at Bronxdale.] "Have you a policeman out here?" we asked him. "Oh, yes, but he doesn't come around very often." "How often?" "Oh, I generally catch a glimpse of him once a month or so," said the gunner. "But then, you see, these here city policemen have to be pretty careful, they're likely to get lost." "Down near Bay Ridge," a man on the cracker-barrel put in as he stroked the store-cat, "one night a policeman got off his beat and floundered into the swamp, and if it hadn't been that some folks of the neighborhood rescued him, he'd have perished--of mosquitoes." "We don't have any mosquitoes here on the north shore," put in the other, addressing us without blinking. He is probably the humorist of the neighborhood. * * * * * This is only one of the many pilgrimages that may be made in Greater New York, and shows only one sort of rurality. It is the great variety of unurban scenes that is the most impressive thing about this city. Here is another sort, seen along certain parts of Jamaica Bay: Long, level sweeps of flat land, covered with tall, wild grass that the sea-breezes like to race across. The plain is intersected here and there with streams of tide-water. At rare intervals there are lonely little clumps of scrub-oaks, huddled close together for comfort. Away off in the distance the yellow sand-dunes loom up as big as mountains, and beyond is the deep, thrilling blue of the open sea, with sharp-cut horizon. The sun comes up, the wonderful color tricks of the early morning are exhibited, and the morning flight of birds begins. The tide comes hurrying in, soon hiding the mud flats where the snipe were feeding. The breeze freshens up, and whitecaps, like specks, can be seen on the distant blue band of the ocean.... The sun gets hot. The tide turns. The estuaries begin to show their mud-banks again. The sun sinks lower; and distant inlets reflect it brilliantly. The birds come back, the breeze dies down, and the sun sets splendidly across the long, flat plain; another day has passed over this part of a so-called city and no man has been within a mile of the spot. The nearest sign of habitation is the lonely life-saving station away over there on the dunes, and, perhaps, a fisherman's shanty. Far out on the sky-line is the smoke of a home-coming steamer, whose approach has already been announced from Fire Island, forty miles down the coast. [Illustration: Another Kind of City Life--Along the Marshes of Jamaica Bay.]