THE COMMON TERN. 753 
Altho the season was far advanced, August 7-8, Ig01, nests and eggs 
abounded, making it appear probable that the colony had been plundered 
earlier in the summer, or else had been overwhelmed in time of storm. 
We made the circuit of the island like excited children, only taking care 
not to crush the eggs beneath our feet. The birds themselves were tireless 
in voice and wing, and would not be lulled to any sense of security, while the 
strangers were on their premises. The convenient, terrace-like arrangement 
of the ground invited the taking of a census, which showed the following 
results: empty nests, 200; nests with eggs, 232; nests with young only, 25; 
loose squabs, 26. 
Some of the nests were quite respectable affairs, neat cushions of 
bark and feathers and trash; but for the most part eggs were dumped 
just anywhere on the gravel. Two nests were found in the corners of 
dry-goods boxes, which had been cast up on the reef. One of these con- 
tained a waif cork by way of a nest-egg. Upon another island the soft 
bedded masses of driftwood proved to be a favorite nesting site, altho gravel 
was not forsworn. At one spot I dug my toe into an empty nest for a 
base and “fetching a compass” with my hands, touched eggs or young in 
fifteen nests. 
More romantic still, was the scene at North Harbor Island, some 
six miles further to the northwest. Here a limestone knob, two acres in 
extent, rough-chiseled by the ancient glacier, supports a skirting fringe 
of gravel on one side, and a considerable grove of hackberry trees in the 
center. As we drew near this charming spot, toward sunset, the island 
with its attendant halo of timorous Terns, rose out of this inland sea 
like the fabled Atlantis in miniature, an enchanted isle of wondrous beauty. 
As the barque of the gentle pirates grated on the strand, a thousand 
Purple Martins rose in a cloud from a dead hackberry tree and whirled 
about in wild confusion until better counsels prevailed and they returned to 
slumber. 
Not so the Terns. Nothing could completely lull their fears; altho, 
when we made our bivouac in the woods, the mothers did settle to their 
eggs. The Terns were everywhere. We found them nesting indiffer- 
ently upon the polished limestone of the western shore, the naked gravels 
of the south end, the grassy paddocks of the upland, or within the dim 
and grassless shade of the interior. The Terns owned the island and 
their clamor was really unceasing. A few were crying all night long, 
and the noise at four o'clock in the morning was nothing short of an 
uproar. We estimated that something like fifteen hundred Terns found 
harbor upon the island, but we did not attempt a nest-and-egg census. 
