LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND TERNS. 11 



as it tries to dodge or escape, close at its heels as if attached by an 

 invisible string. At last, in desperation, the harassed tern drops 

 its fish and the relentless pursuer seizes it before it strikes the water. 

 Occasionally the indignant tern voids its excrement instead, v?hich 

 the jaeger immediately seizes, as if it were a dainty morsel. 



Off Chatham, Massachusetts, we often saw this and the next spe- 

 cies, which are called " jiddie-hawks" by the fishermen, mingling 

 with the shearwaters and browbeating them as they do the gulls 

 and terns. As soon as the shearwaters began to gather about our 

 boat to pick up the pieces of cod liver that we threw overboard, 

 the jaegers would appear and take a hand in the general scramble 

 for food. They are quick to sense the idea that a gathering flock 

 of sea birds means a feast to be obtained by force. The " haglets " 

 are greedy feeders, and soon gulp down what pieces of food they 

 can find, but they have learned by many a painful squabble that 

 they are no match for the active, fighting "jiddie-hawks," and they 

 are soon forced to disgorge or to surrender the field. 



Mr. Kumlien (1879) says that on the Greenland coast "they live 

 to a great extent upon the labors of the kittiwake, though they do 

 not hesitate to attack Larus leucopterus^ and even glaucus. They are 

 destructive to young birds and eggs. It is a common sight to see 

 five or six after one gull, which is soon made to disgorge, and then 

 the jaegers fight among themselves for the morsel, which often gets 

 lost in the melee." In addition to the food stolen from other birds, 

 the pomarine jaeger lives on what it can pick up in the way of offal, 

 carrion, and scraps thrown from the galley. It devours young birds 

 and eggs, and even small mammals, such as mice and lemmings. 



Mr. Albert W. Tuttle (1911) publishes the following account, con- 

 tained in a letter from Mr. Allen Moses, of Grand Manan, New 

 Brunswick : 



I saw a pomarine jaeger catch a pjialaiope. There was a pair of the jaegers. 

 The female started after tlie phalaropes and chased them a long time. They 

 were too smart for her, and after a long chase she separated out one, and then 

 the male gave chase, and in a few minutes, with the two chasing the little fel- 

 jow, one caught him within a hundred yards of the vessel ; then they both lighted 

 in the water and ate him. 



Behavior. — Were it not endowed with splendid powers of flight 

 the pomarine jaeger could never perform the feats indicated above. 

 It is not only swift and poweiful, but it has wonderful command 

 of its powers on the wing. It can be easily recognized by its superior 

 size and by the peculiar shape of its elongated, central tail feathers, 

 which are broad and blunt and are held with their vanes in a verti- 

 cal plane, like a rudder. Its ordinary flight is steady and direct, 

 with rather slow, constant wing beats. Mr. Walter H. Kich haa 



