AMONG THE WATER Fowr 
there a little vegetation has taken hold,—a few spears 
of grass, or a little clump of weeds. A slight hol- 
low in such a place serves very well for a nest, and 
the addition of a few stems of grass or seaweed 
tucked around it for a rim, answers to give the 
owner the distinction of a wealthy house-owner and 
tax - payer. 
Whether the distinction will ordinarily hold or 
not, I cannot say; but the Arctic Perms: of ahus 
colony, and of others that I have visited, lay gener- 
ally but two eggs, while with the Common or Wil- 
son’s Tern three is the ordinary number. On one 
occasion, when I looked the island over pretty care- 
fully, and inspected hundreds and hundreds of sets 
of eggs, only about a dozen contained three eggs, 
and none more; the rest two each. 
There “is the ‘usual’ interesting ‘variety imi the 
colors and markings of these eggs that there is in 
those: of other Terns and Gulls) ‘nor is “there any 
perceptible difference between the eggs of the va- 
rious species of Weris of the size. or the Areas 
In these colonies I always like to look for oddly 
marked or colored eggs, and among so many some 
very strange types are found. On this island one 
season I found two eggs in a little hollow of the 
rock that were of a clear light blue ground-color, 
with only a few sparse spots. ‘The next year, in the 
very same place, were two precisely similar eggs. 
A daughter of one of the keepers gave me a plain 
bluish green egg without a single spot, which she 
had found in a previous season. 
The Terns were all-over the Island, except ar 
the southeast corner, near the cluster of buildings; 
140 
