^isSP^ Townsend, Ipswich Bird Notes. 183 



the adult and young reach a point where the transference of the fish directly 

 from bill to bill is made so quickly that one often can not be sure that the 

 fish is thrown or dropped or actually passed from mouth to mouth. I am 

 inclined to think that all three methods are used. 



On the sand beach the young sometimes collect in numbers, while the 

 adults fish for them, and all the young seem eager to take food from any 

 adult. On one occasion at Ipswich I saw an adult tern with a fish in its 

 bill alight on the beach near two immature birds who both clamored 

 loudly to be fed. Disregarding their cries it flew to a third immature bird 

 but was soon off and alighted near an adult to whom it delivered the fish 

 which was swallowed. 



The process of feeding the young bird on the surface of the water, is 

 perhaps the most interesting, and points to the former more aquatic an- 

 cestry of the terns. An adult flies screaming with a fish in its bill, the young 

 responds by a beseeching call, flies towards the parent, and alights on 

 the water still calling. The old one flies down and delivers the fish without 

 alighting or doing so'but for a brief moment. The thing is done so quickly 

 that it is often impossible to know what happens. The young one as soon 

 as it receives the fi?h flies up into the air. It is rare for adult terns to alight 

 on the water. 



I have great hopes that this and other species of terns will return to the 

 upper beach and dunes at Ipswich to breed as they did fifty years ago. 



Mergus serrator. Red-breasted Merganser. — The breeding range 

 of this bird according to the ' Check-List ' extends on the Atlantic Coast as 

 far south as southern Maine. Mr. E. H. Forbush in his ' Game Birds, 

 Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds of Massachusetts,' 1912, page 66, gives records 

 of cripples raising broods of young on Cape Cod. Although it is common 

 for a few birds to spend the summer at Ipswich I never saw any evidence of 

 breeding until July 30, 1916, when I found a group of eleven young birds 

 nearly full grown with an adult female. A few rods off swam an adult 

 male in partial moult into the eclipse plumage. The male swam alone 

 some distances up the beach, came ashore and preened himself. On being 

 disturbed by my approach, he wadled down to the water and flapped over 

 its surface, but appeared, owing to the moult, to be unable to fly. A week 

 later he had regained his flying powers. The family in the brown dress 

 kept together all summer. 



On July 4, 1917, I counted a compact flock of thirty Red-breasted Mer- 

 gansers off the beach. There were two adult males moulting into eclipse 

 plumage and one or two adult females. The others were young birds as 

 shown by their smaller size and by the close ranks they kept as they turned 

 this way and that. The flock must have been composed of three broods 

 that had united together, a habit I have observed in Labrador in the case 

 of Eiders. I did not have a chance to observe these birds again until the 

 last of August, when I found a flock of twenty-three Red-breasted Mer- 

 gansers, all in the brown plumage, all swimming together in a close flock. 



Asio wilsonianus. Long-eared Owl. — This owl is generally con- 



