62 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



birds and the breeding habits of resident species, and has Hkewise 

 furnished some interesting data on the adjustment of birds to changes 

 of conditions. Bird Key, a small island of the Tortugas group, which 

 was some 400 by 200 feet when I first visited these islands, has 

 shrunk to a little more than a third of that size through the action 

 of hurricanes and other storms. Here some 30.000 Sooty and Noddy 

 Terns come annually to breed. Fifteen years ago the Noddies bred 

 exclusively in the Bay Cedars and other trees, even in the axils of 

 the leaves of the tall cocoanut palms. All of the trees having been 

 destroyed by storms, the Noddies are now breeding upon the ground 

 as the Sooty Terns have always done. Photographs were taken year 





Fig. 63. — A Chuckwillswidovv. a relative of the Whippoorwill, on 

 Loggerhead Key, Tortugas, Florida. 



by year showing the gradual adjustment from the tree nesting habit to 

 brush nesting, and finally to sand nesting. It is interesting to ob- 

 serve such a tenacity to a nesting site, particularly so since Logger- 

 head Key, which is only a short distance away and across which the 

 Terns are constantly flying, is still heavily covered with Bay Cedars 

 but has not been chosen as a new nesting site by the colony. 



This year yielded one addition to the birds previously recorded ' 

 for the Tortugas group — the Nonpareil, Passcrina ciris, seen and 

 photograi)hed on Garden Key. We also secured a series of photo- 

 graphs from a blind of the following birds: Least Sandpiper, Semi- 

 jjalmated Sandpiper, Sanderling, Willet, S]iotted Sandpiper, Semi- 

 palmated Plover, and Turnstone. A report upon the 15 years of 

 bird observations upon the Florida Keys is in preparation. 



' A summar}' of the records was published in the Smithsonian Report for 1917, 

 PP- 497-500. 



