Cleaves: Bird Photographing on Islands of Virginia 13 



no longer recognized it as her " claim," and after making a brief 

 survey of the ruins departed once and for all. 



The skimmers were the chief objects of our visit and although 

 four days is hardly a sufficient length of time in which to study 

 the home life of so interesting a creature, yet a surprising amount 

 of information can be gleaned in that space; and we were espe- 

 cially well located for the purpose in hand, as the birds were nest- 

 ing all about us, and instead of retiring to a house or hotel each 

 night, as is so often the case with those on ornithological trips, 

 we lived day and night literally among the birds. Even in the 

 darkest hours when I chanced to wake, or more often when the 

 host of mosquitoes found an opening leading to my face and 

 rushed in to the attack, rousing me from my slumbers, I could 

 hear the sonorous baying of the skimmers here and there through 

 the colony when the waves ceased for the time to pound heavily 

 on the hard beach or when a bird flew past the tent at close range. 

 Although I should not consider the skimmer to be a truly noc- 

 turnal species, I am nevertheless convinced that they are perfectly 

 cognizant, as are the terns also, of the presence and movements 

 of a human being or other strange creature in or near their habitat 

 at night ; and I am fairly certain, although not positive, that many 

 of the female skimmers lay their eggs during the hours of 

 darkness. 



In the daytime when the sun's rays were so intense that heat 

 waves constantly danced over the baking dunes and sultry 

 marshes, making it advisable to wear a wet rag about one's head, 

 the skimmers repaired to the cool, moist beach to bathe in pools 

 left stranded by the receding tide or to fly above the waves or 

 swoop and skim for food in a deep trough between them, always 

 shooting up in time to avoid the breaking crest. The females not 

 infrequently deserted their posts at the nests to enjoy the refresh- 

 ing atmosphere of the exposed flats, but soon returned to the 

 oppressive region of the home to guard the eggs. The nest is a 

 mere depression in the sand, shaped by the bird's body, and here 

 the three or four peculiarly blotched eggs, in size slightly smaller 



