THE OOLOGIST. 



49 



ty, be attributed to the same bird, — 

 beautiful as the series was,— while they 

 had been blown, evidently, at different 

 times and in different measures, and in 

 varying degrees. VVorse yet: eggs of 

 one set bore half-erased Ridgway 

 marks, whic'i the collector has neatly 

 explained by saying that his brother, 

 that continually bobbinging and ever- 

 rascally brother, had marked four of 

 the eggs with the Ridgway numbers; 

 while on the lifth day, a fifth egg w.as 

 brouglii from the nest, and- all were 

 then marked properly and up-to-date! 



My correspondent pleads innocence, 

 and the eggs he has sent out support 

 his plea. But, lest he impose his inno- 

 cence, through an advertisement, on 

 others, 1 would fain have the public 

 know what his sets as like, ' 'hence these 

 tears," — for "a word to the wise is sulii- 

 cient." 



Last summer, I found that a much- 

 cherished set of eggs of the '-Blue- 

 winged Warbler,'' taken, and sent out 

 with autograph data by one who is now 

 a fairly well-know student of Biology, 

 were hind-painted. Despite his fame 

 and the years that have elapsed since 

 the cleverly stippled set of Yellow- 

 throat eggs were received, I hope still, 



to make that painter's " flanks to 



smoke as they had basted been." What 

 has he done, I wonder, with my eight 

 dollars worth of precious BulT-breasted 

 Sandpiper skins, — made up from fat 

 birds beside the midnight lamp':* The 

 soul of such a man is smaller even than 

 the caivases of the microscopic para- 

 sites intn whose anatomy he so enthu- 

 siastii" i' \' noses. 



Ow- I the Florida boys has offered 

 me, ;i!i!()ng other rarities, sets of Fish 

 Crow; White-eyed Towhee; Mountain 

 Song Sparrow; Florida Burrowing Owl; 

 Southern Hairy Woodpecker. These 

 he didn't have at the the beginning of 

 the season who has been taking him in"? 

 P. B. Peabody, 

 St. Vincent, Minn. 



Common Terns. 



On the 10th of June, 18'J5 I received a 

 note from my friend, J. C. Laying, that 

 the "Swallows were in," and on the 

 23d, my brother Tom, our friend J. D., 

 and myself boarded the Bayhaven of 

 the Continental Co., bound for Little 

 Rhodies Summer Capitol. The spotted 

 treasures of that bird of so many names 

 — Common Tern, Wilson's Tern, Red- 

 shank, Mackeral Gull, and Summer 

 Gull — were the prizes which we sought. 

 It was a glorious day, as we passed 

 through the varied and beautiful scen- 

 ery of Providence river and Narragan- 

 sett Baj', and reaching Newport in good 

 time, we hastened across the city and 

 were soon aboard J. C's. powerful row- 

 boat, built to withstand heavy seas, for 

 we were then on the open Atlantic. 



A row of one and one-half miles 

 around the "cliffs'' brought us in sight 

 of Gull Rock, a solitary sea-covered 

 mass of conglomerate rock, about one 

 hundred feet long by seventy broad, 

 rising out of the surf and scarcely more 

 than two hundred and fifty yards fi'om 

 "The Breakers,'' Cornelius Vanderbilt's 

 palatial summer cottage. 



As we drew nearer we saw many sin- 

 gles and pairs of the beautiful little 

 Terns, fishing in the eddies or skim- 

 ming by within easy gun shot, and 

 when we were about two hundred yards 

 distant from the nesting site, they rose, 

 en masse — abont two hundred in all — 

 and kept up a continual cry of alarm as 

 long as we remained about the rock. 



Upon making a landing we stopped 

 to gaze a moment, before the pilfering 

 began, and to one not accustomed to 

 seeing colonies of nests, it was a pretty 

 sight. The part of the rock which is 

 sometimes flooded by high tides is 

 avoided by the Terns, and the eggs are 

 all laid in an area of about thirty feet 

 square. Twenty sets were visible from 

 one point. The sets contained two or 

 three eggs each and one prolilic house- 



