184 



THE OOLOGIST 



and among all the varieties of the hu- 

 man race but, undoubtedly, our wond- 

 erment grows when we see it evi- 

 denced among the lower orders as in 

 plant, animal, insect and bird life all 

 about us. 



A curious phase of this abnormal 

 whiteness was thrust forcibly on my 

 notice in June of 1915 when I was 

 with Col. Theodore Roosevelt on his 

 visit to the bird island reservations 

 of Louisiana where the breeding colo- 

 nies of terns, gulls and black skim- 

 mers are guarded during the summer 

 months from molestation by the Con- 

 servation Commission of Louisiana. 



We were ashore early one hot June 

 morning and I was photographing a 

 particular fine flight of a hundred or 

 more black skimmers as they "skim- 

 med" over the surface of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, the majority of these queer- 

 billed birds having their under mandi- 

 ble under water. I was asked to 

 point out, from many thousands of 

 eggs that lined the long sand shingle 

 for about two miles, the eggs of this 

 particular bird. This is an easy mat- 

 ter for the skimmer, as perhaps most 

 readers of this magazine know, lays 

 a clutch of four eggs and "scoops" out 

 a nest in the sand, while the Caspian, 

 Cabot and Royal terns deposit their, 

 usually one or sometimes two eggs, on 

 the undisturbed surface. 



I had pointed out a typical nest, 

 fours, but, happening to glance just 

 beyond my outstretched arm, I made a 

 discovery. It was a skimmer's nest 

 with three eggs, one of which was 

 white with black spots. The body 

 color of the typical black skimmer's 

 egg is pale buff, spotted and splash- 

 ed with dark browns, and blackish, 

 and pale neutral tints. Consequently 

 I was interested. 



I pointed out this "freak" to Presi- 

 dent M. L. Alexander, of the Conser- 

 vation Commission, and said: "Here 



is a strange thing — a black skimmer's 

 egg inclining to albinism." The "find" 

 came in for a general observance by 

 the whole party ashore on Breton Is- 

 land and duly wondered at. We had 

 not gone twenty feet forward when I 

 discovered another white egg among 

 two other typical specimens. This 

 one was more than inclining toward 

 the peculiar white phase — there were 

 traces of the blackish spots only and 

 these showing so faintly as to give 

 them a bluish or lilac cast. Five min- 

 utes later a third freak nest was dis- 

 covered and this one contained what 

 I was wondering if I could be lucky 

 enough to find — a perfect, or wholly 

 white, albino egg! 



A careful search of the beach for 

 more such specimens pregnant with 

 results. I located eleven pure white, 

 twenty-seven nearly pure white and 

 nine with a white ground but blackish 

 spots. I located them in nests of 

 twos, threes and fours but not one 

 nest had more than one such egg and, 

 in one nest that I marked off and ex- 

 amined later in the day, a typical egg 

 was laid after an albino egg had been 

 deposited. One thing that I wanted 

 to know but did not find out was — 

 whether or not the "freak" egg was 

 laid first and the typical eggs after- 

 wards. I am inclined to doubt that 

 this is the case for not in a single in- 

 stance did I find a nest with a single 

 albino egg and I did see many hun- 

 dreds containing the first of the clutch 

 and in every case the one egg was a 

 typical one. 



I made a collection of these eggs for 

 the Louisiana State Museum and that 

 they were fertile was proved when 

 Curator Robert Clark prepared them 

 for the cabinet for each contained an 

 imago of perfect form and growth. 

 That the albino egg will produce 

 young was demonstrated on a later 

 tour to Breton Island (which, by the 



