66 TWO ATLANTIC COAST ISLANDS 



structure, he was known to be correspondingly unique in 

 feeding habit ; while there was something pleasantly mys- 

 terious in the birds ' supposed habit of coming home only 

 after dark. 



Skimmers arrive on the Virginia coast early in May, and 

 begin to lay about June 15 ; but their nests are so persist- 

 ently robbed by fishermen that few young are hatched before 

 July 20. The latter part of this month or early August is, 

 therefore, the best season in which to study the domestic 

 economy of the Skimmer household. 



It is a memorable moment in the life of the naturalist 

 when the animal of books or museums, or even zoological 

 gardens, is first seen by him, a wild, free creature in its 

 haunts ; and when the animal is as singularly formed as the 

 Skimmer, one's desire is intensified by a curiosity to see it 

 use its peculiar and characteristic organs. Imagine, then, 

 the joy of an ornithologist who, for the first time, finds him- 

 self in a breeding colony of thousands of Skimmers, where 

 the air is filled with a yelping mob of birds whose eggs and 

 young are so numerous on the broad shell-strewn beach, 

 that one cannot walk without danger of stepping on them. 



It was not difficult to find a spot in which to begin a study 

 of the birds. Some minutes before reaching the boundary 

 of the territory they inhabited, a band of birds arose in the 

 air and, with more or less extended front, flew toward me 

 only to swing to one side, wheel and fly back again ; all utter- 

 ing a trumpet-like note which is effectively emphasized by 

 violent bill action, the bright red and black mandibles open- 

 ing widely with each note. When the nests were reached, 

 the uproar increased and with it the excitement and bold- 

 ness of the particular birds near whose eggs or nests I 

 chanced to be standing. Starting a hundred or more feet 

 away, one after the other charged toward me with such 

 speed and apparent fearlessness, that one could well be par- 

 doned an involuntary dodge ere the birds, when only a few 

 feet away, swerved and passed over one's head. 



