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. 
