282 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



parents, all this time, are following the enemy overhead, lamenting 

 the danger to which their young are exposed. In several instances, 

 the old bird followed us almost to our boat, alighting occasionally 

 on a projecting crag before us, and entreating us, as it were, to 

 restore its offspring. By the first of August, many of the young 

 are fully fledged, and the different broods are seen associating 

 together to the number of forty, fifty, or more. They now gradu- 

 ally remove to the islands of the coast, where they remain until 

 their departure, which takes place in the beginning of September. 

 They start at the dawn of day, proceed on their way south at a 

 small elevation above the water, and fly in so straggling a manner 

 that they can scarcely be said to move in flocks." 



A number of eggs in my collection, from Wisconsin and 

 Illinois, where these birds breed in considerable numbers, 

 are of a faint grayish-brown color, and marked with numer- 

 ous dots and spots of umber, of different shades, over the 

 entire surface of the egg. On one or two specimens, these 

 markings are confluent into coarser blotches of the two 

 shades of umber and lilac. The greatest dimensions of my 

 specimens are .93 by .65 inch; the least dimensions, .85 

 by .63 inch. 



