RARER BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 641 



England coast. As I have already called attention to this 

 fact* I will only add that during last winter additional speci- 

 mens of this character were obtained by me in Cambridge. 



LAUGHING GULL. Chroecocephalns atricilla Lawr. This 

 bird now breeds on the Massachusetts coast very sparingly, 

 it having been nearly extirpated by the incessant persecution 

 it suffers from "eggers" during the breeding season. A few 

 pairs were observed last year on Muskeget Island, by Mr. 

 Maynard and myself, and a few of its eggs obtained, about 

 July 1st. As they had previously been repeatedly robbed, 

 "eggers" almost constantly haunting the island, they were 

 extremely shy. Another small colony of this species, I 

 have learned from Mr. L. L. Thaxter, breed on the islands 

 near Tennant's Harbor, Maine. 



In my Catalogue I by some mistake gave this bird as oc- 

 curring in winter. Though said by Mr. Boardmau to be 

 resident in the vicinity of Calais, Maine, I have as yet been 

 unable to learn of its occurrence in this state except in sum- 

 mer. My earlier impression that the species was resident 

 in Massachusetts I have since found was wrongly founded. 



COMMON TERN. Sterna hirundo Linn. This interesting 

 bird must soon be numbered among the species which perse- 

 cution has driven from the state during the breeding season, 

 unless some effective mode of protecting it during the breed- 

 ing season is soon adopted. At present it is only found at a 

 few localities, chiefly on Muskeget and the neighboring 

 islets ; a few only breed at different points along Cape Cod 

 and at Ipswich. Almost everywhere they are more or less 

 persecuted, and at Muskeget this and the other species of 

 Terns that breed there are so systematically robbed of their 

 eggs that if they succeed in rearing any young at all it is 

 only after having been several times deprived of their eggs. 

 Muskeget is a small, barren, sandy, crescent-shaped island, 

 about two miles in length, with, in its wider part, a breadth 



* Memoirs Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. i, p. 520. 



AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. III. 81 



