BIRDS OF NEW YORK 



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Nesting. I am pleased to report that the Black, or Short -tailed tern, 

 is a regular summer resident in the marshes near the mouth of Big Sandy- 

 creek, Jefferson county, N. Y. According to Dr R. L. Crockett, Mr L. C. 

 Snyder and Mr J. W. Soulc the birds begin to lay during the last week in 

 Ma}', making their nests on sunken muskrat houses, floating boards, or 

 debris, merely gathering together a few straws on which to deposit the eggs 

 which are from two to five in number, usually three. Dr Crockett writes 

 that the eggs are sometimes found as late as the last of July and thinks 



Nfst and eggs o£ Black tern. CFrom Btrd-Lore: photo by Bent) 



that two broods are reared. Mr Snyder estimated that there were 150 

 pairs of breeding birds in 1903. Mr William Hagedone, keeper of the Life 

 Saving Station, writes that in 1905 there were probably 1000 birds in the 

 marshes; that they arrive about the first of June, lay four eggs in a nest, 

 the young "are all out" by the 4th of July, that no one shoots them, and 

 they are all gone by the ist of September. Mr Foster Parker of Cayuga 

 has found it breeding in the Montezuma marshes on a few occasions. "The 

 eggs are brownish olive, quite heavily spotted and splashed with light 

 brown, brownish black and obscure shell markings, dimensions 1.35 x .95 



