1889]. Durcuer, Birds of Little Gull Island, N. Y. 125 
Island. It lies between Great Gull and Fisher’s Islands, about 
one fourth of a mile E. N. E. of the former, and four miles W. 
S. W. of the latter. Between Little Gull and Fisher’s Islands 
runs the ‘Race,’ the principal channel for vessels passing into and 
out of the Sound. 
Little Gull is probably one hundred yards long by fifty broad, 
and is composed of coarse gravel overstrewn with large bowlders. 
The light-house, with the dwelling house of the keepers, is built 
on a cylindrical turret of stone, about thirty-five yards in diameter 
and four high. The light is a fixed white light of the second 
order (burning three wicks), and is supplemented in foggy 
weather by a second class steam siren, giving blasts of five seconds 
duration, with intervals of forty seconds. The light is said to be 
visible seventeen miles, and the siren can be heard probably five 
or Six. 
Great Gull Island, situated W. S. W. of Little Gull, as de- 
scribed above, contains some fourteen or fifteen acres, and is 
composed of sand, with a shore line and broad outlying reef of 
rocks. The surface of the island is hilly, having an altitude of 
probably twenty-five feet at its highest point, and is covered by a 
growth of coarse grass, with here and there a small clump of 
bushes. Ina hollow on the north side of the island is a small 
fresh-water swamp, dry and overgrown with cat-tails in the fall. 
Great Gull Island was purchased by the Government to serve 
as a garden for the keepers of the Little Gull Light, but it was so 
overrun with mice that it was useless for that purpose. And now 
its sole use is as a breeding place for Terns and as a convenient and 
suitable spot for credulous people to search for the buried treasures 
of Captain Kidd. 
I secured a specimen of the resident mouse, which proved to be 
a juvenile Arvicola riparius. 
List oF BIRDS OBSERVED AT LITTLE GULL AND GREAT GULL Is- 
LANDS, AuGusT 6-16, 1888. 
1. Stercorarius pomarinus. POMARINE JAEGER, AND 2. Stercorarius 
parasiticus. PARASITIC JAEGER.— These species, taken together, were 
among the most common seen on the trip. From three to ten individuals 
could be seen any day at the fishing grounds, flying around among the 
Terns, chasing them about and compelling them to drop their fish. Every 
day on the ‘slack’ of the tides, when the bluefish bait seemed to be more 
abundant than at other times, the Terns would go over in crowds from 
