AMONG THE WaTER FowL 
the probable number of Gulls at about five thou- 
sand, though one of the party thought it was 
nearer ten thousand. Whatever it was it is a won- 
derful sight, and those days spent there in camp 
will be of fragrant memory. At night I would 
look out over the moon-lit expanse and hear the 
clamor of the colony that appeared to cease not 
day nor night. Possibly at night the Musk-rats or 
Minks were disturbing them. 
This lake was a wonderful center for bird-life. 
Besides Coots, Rails, Night Herons, Bitterns, large 
numbers of Ducks, and about a thousand of vari- 
ous kinds of Grebes, some of them in colonies, we 
estimated that there were something like a thousand 
Black Terns breeding. These we found hovering 
in flocks wherever we went in the area of water- 
growing grass 
that extended in 
a wide border 
out irom shite 
shore all around 
the lake "as iar 
as we went. It 
was not hard to 
find their nests, 
which were little 
“IT WAS NOT HARD TO FIND THEIR NESTS, WHICH mounds floating 
WERE LITTLE MOUNDS FLOATING IN PARTIAL a , 
OPENINGS AMID THE GRASS.”’ NEST OF BLACK In partial open- 
Ae ings amid the 
grass. They’ were notclose together, butjim ioe; 
casional little communities, being placed there a 
few yards, or even rods, apart, perhaps a dozen or 
so to a group. Two eggs are usually laid, some- 
166 
