i8o THE STORY OF A BIRD LOVER 



excellent, and the many waterways afforded fine 

 opportunity for boating. 



The bay-birds migrating along the coast in the 

 spring and fall found at Cobb's Island plentiful 

 supplies of food. This and other local conditions 

 attracted them in vast numbers. The usual group 

 associated with the sea beaches and marshes of the 

 Atlantic coast were represented, and there was 

 little difference in kind as compared with Barnegat. 

 The numbers of the greater and lesser yellow- 

 legs, the Hudsonian curlew, the dowitcher, the 

 jacksnipe or creeker, the robin snipe, the willet, 

 the black-bellied and golden plovers, not to men- 

 tion innumerable representatives of least and semi- 

 palmated sandpipers, were striking. The marshes 

 sheltered quantities of clapper-rail, while the 

 beaches on the surf side were patrolled by many 

 piping, ring-necked, and Wilson's plovers, as well 

 as hosts of sanderlings and dunlins. Wilson's 

 plover, unlike the others, bred here in the rough 

 shingle, not far above high-water mark, and willets 

 were equally plenty, breeding in the marshes. 



It was the great number of different kinds of 

 gulls and terns that had attracted me to this 

 point. Here vast colonies of them found breed- 

 ing ground. It is difficult to say which kind were 

 more numerous ; there were myriads of all. The 

 laughing gull was the only true gull breeding, but 

 when I first arrived at Cobb's Island, Bonaparte 



