PRINCETON 99 



laughing gulls. In addition, in the vicinity was 

 a small colony of black skimmers. I saw them 

 constantly during the summer spent at Barnegat, 

 but generally only in pairs, and never more than 

 five or six individuals together. There were be- 

 side vast quantities of game-birds in the way of 

 ducks and geese, and the land-birds present are 

 fully dealt with in the paper I have mentioned. 



At this time Barnegat was a Mecca for sports- 

 men, and still is, so far as fishing is concerned; 

 but the persecution of the gulls and terns by egg 

 hunters, and the almost incessant gunning for 

 ducks, geese, and bay-birds, have had the inevi- 

 table result. The terns and gulls have been 

 practically exterminated as breeding birds in the 

 region, and the numbers of game-birds have been 

 so largely decreased that few sportsmen care to 

 visit what was once a famous resort. 



In concluding the sketch of this part of my 

 career, I must introduce a friend who was con- 

 stantly with me from the spring of 1875 for six- 

 teen years. In the spring of 1875 a setter bitch 

 w^hich I owned had a litter of very fine puppies. 

 I gave away all but one. This puppy I broke for 

 the peculiar purposes necessitated by my work 

 with birds. I took him away from his mother 

 when he was five weeks old, and kept him with 

 me in my rooms, at the museum, and in all my 

 journeys for the next two years. He was a red 



