GULLS AND TERNS. 275 



Terns had drawn this little creature to the scene, having frequently 

 witnessed his anxious curiosity on similar occasions in the woods. 



" The Lesser Tern feeds on beetles, crickets, spiders, and other in- 

 sects, which it picks up from the marshes, as well as on small fish." 



The Skimmer, Razor-bill or Cut-water, is a most 

 curious bird that comes from southern waters late in 

 spring as far north as New Jersey, but seldom con- 

 tinues beyond Sandy Hook. Of course, southward, 

 it is seen earlier. As in the case of probably every 

 species of sea-bird nesting on the ground, these 

 skimmers are now far less numerous than when Wil- 

 son studied them in the marshes of Cape May. 

 During a long stay in that neighborhood, with excel- 

 lent opportunities to see what birds were then about, 

 in 1892, I saw but one specimen, and that my guide 

 could give me no name for or information about. 

 He had seldom seen them. Wilson tells us that 

 this bird 



"is most frequently seen skimming close along shore, about the 

 first of the flood, at which time the young fry, shrimp, etc., are most 

 abundant in such places. There are also numerous inlets among the 

 low islands between the sea-beach and main land of Cape May where 

 I have observed the Shearwaters, eight or ten in company, passing 

 and repassing at high water particular estuaries of those creeks that 

 run up into the salt marshes, dipping, with extended neck, their open 

 bills into the water, with as much apparent ease as Swallows glean 

 up flies from the surface. On examining the stomachs of several ot 

 these, shot at the time, they contained numbers of a small fish. . . . 



" The voice is harsh and screaming, resembling that of the Tern, but 

 stronger. It flies with a slowly flapping flight, dipping occasionally, 

 with steady expanded wings and bended neck, its lower mandible 

 into the sea, and with open mouth receiving its food as it ploughs along 

 the surface. It is rarely seen swimming on the water, but frequently 

 rests in large parties on the sand-bars at low water. One of these 

 birds which I wounded in the wing, and kept in a room beside me for 



