264 BIRDS IN THEIR RELATIONS TO MAN. 



long been on the " retired list." Birds of this class have been 

 gradually taken from the game lists in the several States — a ten- 

 dency culminating in the Migratory Bird Act passed by Congress 

 in 1913. This act makes a continuous closed season on mi- 

 gratory insectivorous birds, excepting the bobolink or reed-bird, 

 which maybe hunted from September 1 to October 31 in cer- 

 tain of the Atlantic States. 



The segregating habit of sea-birds at certain breeding places, 

 so advantageous to plume-hunters, is not less so to "eggers," 

 nor less fatal to the birds. Audubon, in his Ornithological 

 Biography, devotes a chapter to " eggers," with whom he 

 came in contact on his Labrador exploration. Their ruthless 

 invasion of the barren islands inhabited by countless murres 

 and gulls, resulting in the loss of every egg that could be dis- 

 covered, all summer long, evidently aroused the displeasure 

 of the great naturalist. 



Even down to a few years ago, when Dominion laws put 

 a stop to it, egging was conthmed on the islands off New- 

 Brunswick and northward. Tlie eggs were brought off by 

 boat-loads and sold for various purposes. Wherever colonies 

 of sea-birds assemble to breed along our Eastern coast, the 

 practice of turning the eggs to commercial use has been in 

 vogue. The eggs of the laughing gull (Lams atricille) are an 

 esteemed delicacy in Virginia. The gulls, terns, and herons, 

 which formerly bred in immense numbers along the coasts of 

 Florida and Texas, have been subject to the same blasting 

 influence. An article ^ by Mr. H. W. Elliott gives an idea of 

 the abundance of eggs and the wholesale manner in which 

 they have been gathered in the Pacific. Mr. Elliott states 

 that when he visited Walrus Island, in Behriug Sea, in July, 

 1872, six men loaded a four-ton boat with murre eggs in less 

 than six hours. Concerning egging in California, Dr. T. S. 

 Palmer writes:^ "A still more striking example of wholesale 



1 The Auk, vol. v. p. 377. 



-' Yearbook, Dept. ..1" Aur. f.-r IS'Hi, p. i>71, 



