^° o 1 DuTCHER, Report of Committee on Bird Protection. 1 49 



The egging is mostly done at night when it is impossible to 

 catch the offender. This year I found a new colony of about 

 i,ooo Skimmers on an island where they had not bred before; 

 there were also about 500 Common Terns and 30 pairs of Wil- 

 son's Plover breeding on the same island. This must be an over- 

 flow from the colonies near the station." 



Capt. G. D. Kitchens, of Smiths Island, says : "There is a great 

 increase in the birds since they have been protected on Smiths 

 Island and on the Isaacs, and the increase is greater this year 

 than last." The cooperation of the Marine Hospital Service to 

 prevent egging on Fishermans Island was asked by your Com- 

 mittee and was accorded by Surgeon General Wyman, who wrote 

 as follows : " The Quarantine Officer reports that he believes it 

 advisable to cooperate with your Union in its work, and to this 

 end has directed his subordinates on Fishermans Island to desist 

 from further gathering eggs thereon or in that vicinity." 



The bird colonies on the Virginia beach were visited by a num- 

 ber of members of our Society during the past season and all unite 

 in reporting that very satisfactory work is being done by the ward- 

 ens. Mr. Kirkwood made his annual inspection trip in August 

 to all the stations. A few statements are extracted from his very 

 full report : 



''Capt, N. B. Rich, who last year had charge of the Assateague 

 Beach station, is now a superintendent of the life saving service. 

 When sending out orders to the various captains he added a 

 clause directing them to protect the birds all they could without 

 interfering with their regular life saving duties, and they now feel 

 that they can talk in quite a different tone from that used formerly. 

 The wardens all agree that the law should be changed. 



"The increase in the numbers of Least Terns is too great to be 

 the result of colonies on this beach ; some of them must have 

 come from further north. 



"I did not see any Royal Terns, so they probably have been 

 exterminated, so far as Virginia is concerned. On the whole, 

 birds were more numerous than last year, the increase being about 

 normal, except in the case of the Least Tern, which is entirely 

 beyond expectation." 



Audubon Work. — There is a small society which is doing con- 



