312 BULLETIN 113, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



to meet us or circling about in flocks, uttering their characteristic 

 notes of protest. A few days later, June 28, we visited another 

 large colony of black skimmers in a similar situation on Wreck 

 Island. They had evidently begun laying at about the same time, 

 for many of the nests contained two or three eggs and one nest 

 held four. The nest hollows measured from 4 to 5 inches in 

 diameter and from 1 to 2 inches in depth ; the nests were all entirely 

 devoid of any attempt at lining. Several pairs of gull-billed terns 

 and a few common terns were nesting in the midst of this colony. 



Black skimmers formerly bred conunonly on low sandy islands on 

 the coast of New Jersey, but the encroachments of civilization have 

 driven them away to more secluded spots. They still breed abun- 

 dantly at certain points on the coasts of the Carolinas. Messrs. B. S. 

 Bowdish (1910) and P. B. Philipp in 1909 found about 200 nesting 

 on Royal Shoals, North Carolina, with a number of common and 

 least terns, where on June 24, they were just beginning to lay; and 

 at Bull's Bay, South Carolina, they found about a thousand begin- 

 ning to lay between June 10 and 15. Mr. Arthur T. Wayne (1910) 

 writes as follows regarding their breeding habits in South Carolina : 



Twenty years age these curious birds used to breed regularly ou SuUivans 

 Island, and by May 15 full complements of eggs could be procured. At present, 

 however, the breeding season is much later than formerly, and the birds, as a 

 rule, have forsaken the coast islands (including Sullivans, Long, and Capers) 

 and breed, or try to, mainly on the larger keys. As fast as the eggs are laid 

 they are taken by any boatman who happens to discover them. The birds are 

 thus forced to lay again and again in order to raise a brood, and hence the 

 breeding season is a long one, being protracted through August. 



In the Breton Island and other reservations off the coast of 

 Louisiana I found a number of interesting skimmer colonies in 1910, 

 where they have flourished under the adequate protection afforded 

 them. On Grand Cochere, the outermost island, a low, flat sand bar, 

 about 300 pairs were breeding a little apart from the large colonies 

 of royal and Cabot's terns, nesting in hollows in the sand, as usual. 

 The largest colony, and the one most typical of the region, was found 

 on Battledore Island, where I spent the whole of one day (June 21), 

 and, as the birds were very tame under the constant protection of the 

 resident warden, I was able to study them at close range from my 

 blind. On this little island, not over 4 acres in extent, I estimated 

 that fully 5,000 pairs of laughing gulls, 1,000 pairs of black skim- 

 mers, 50 pairs of Louisiana herons, 30 pairs of Forster's terns, and 

 25 pairs of common terns were breeding. A large number of skim- 

 mers were nesting by themselves on an open beach of finely broken 

 oyster shells which formed a long narrow point at one end of the 

 island. They were also nesting at several places with the laughing 



