^°i'sq^"] Mack AY, Terns: of Mui^keg-et Island. 4 y 



to see if any such result could possibly be produced by the 

 blowing away of the sand, and decided it would be impossible. 

 I then called up Mr. Sandsbury, who was near at hand, and asked 

 him his opinion without expressing my own ; as he agreed with 

 me in every particular I considered the circumstance worth 

 recording. As I knew of no way then of taking it, as it was in 

 place, I left it until my next visit, July 2, when I went after it 

 with the proper appliances to preserve it. This time, however, I 

 failed to find it, the eggs having probably been hatched in the 

 mean time and the loose sand had blown over and covered it up. 

 Although my remarks have already reached considerable 

 length I would beg to add a few words regarding the colony of 

 Laughing Gulls {Larus atriciUa) inhabiting Muskeget Island 

 proper (see Auk, Vol. X, p. 2>ZZ)- I visited it on June 15 and 

 July I, 1894, finding it in the most flourishing condition. Their 

 number had nearly doubled, as nearly as I could judge, since last 

 year. They were nesting a few hundred yards west of w-here 

 they were last year, on the northern side of the island. On June 

 1 5 I found fifteen nests containing forty -one eggs, of \vhich, four 

 nests contained two eggs each, and eleven nests three eggs each. 

 I noted one egg which was pale olive brown, practically unspotted. 

 These nests were in tall beach grass, and placed in the middle of 

 a narrow path or alley, where the grass had been trodden down 

 by the birds in going in and out. They apparently do not turn 

 around to go out the way they enter, the passage being too 

 narrow to permit of it, without disarranging their plumage. All 

 the bare knolls of sand in the immediate vicinity of the colony 

 had been much used by them as resting places. They are 

 extremely gregarious in this breeding haunt, which is not more 

 than one hundred yards in diameter, and their nests are at times 

 placed within a few feet of each other. They are apparently on the 

 best of terms with their neighbors, the Roseate and Wilson's 

 Terns, whose breeding grounds adjoin and encroach on theirs, 

 and with whom they intermingle. When I again visited them on 

 July I, I found most of the eggs hatched and the young chicks in 

 the grass. I found, however, two nests with one egg each, and 

 six nests with two eggs each. The chicks in the down have the 

 entire upper parts grayish, with a yellowish tinge, intermixed with 



