82 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Tern which has become greatly reduced since occupation of the 

 island by the gulls. For two or three years several pairs of 

 Herring Gulls have been breeding on the outer bars of Muske- 

 get, where they were first found by Mr. Winthrop S. Brooks of 

 Boston. 



The prosperity and increase of the Massachusetts tern colonies 

 appear to be nearing the end. This may be due in part to the 

 increase of the gulls. Mr. A. Burdett of Overveen, Holland, a 

 well-known ornithologist, tells me that the protection of Her- 

 ring Gulls in England and Holland, which has increased their 

 numbers exceedingly, has resulted in a great reduction of some 

 tern colonies. The gulls destroy the eggs and young of the 

 terns, and on one island, with the history of which he is fully 

 acquainted, the terns have been extirpated. I am informed by 

 Dr. John C. Phillips, who was on Muskeget during the breeding 

 season this year, that the colony of terns there has decreased. 

 Laughing Gulls are known in some cases to destroy the eggs and 

 young of terns, but there is no evidence that they have done 

 that on Muskeget. The smaller birds, however, may be giving 

 way to the larger. 



During the past breeding season I have visited all the large 

 colonies of terns in Massachusetts except those at Penikese and 

 Muskeget, and many of the smaller colonies, sometimes in com- 

 pany with Mr. A. C. Bent, at other times with Mr. Charles 

 Weekes or Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson or alone. Many small 

 colonies have been extirpated. Among the larger colonies only 

 one was found to be as prosperous as in former years. That 

 was the Nauset Colony, where the birds were protected by Mr. 

 Daniel Gould, employed by the Massachusetts Conservation 

 Commission. All the other colonies, apparently, are decreasing 

 in numbers, with the possible exception of the Chatham colony 

 on south beach which has received accessions from birds that 

 formerly nested on north beach. Arctic Terns attempted to 

 nest on north beach this year, but were driven off in part by 

 high tides and in part by cats, skunks and perhaps other natural 

 enemies which overrun the beach. In the large Chatham colony 

 and at Muskeget there was great mortality among the young 

 birds. At the Wepecket Islands the terns began to breed early, 

 but during the summer they largely disappeared. Some went 



