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Bird - Lore 



numbers have decreased. It is doubtful if more than loo pairs bred successfully 

 this year on the Wepeckets. The great colony on Muskeget has decreased 

 considerably. The colonies on the outer beaches of Nauset and Chatham 

 have practically disappeared. The colony at Monomoy has been decimated. 

 The colony at Truro was raided by eggers, and the other colonies show really 

 no signs of increase. The Nauset colony is the only prosperous one visited 

 by me in 1921. 



Roseate Terns have been breeding this year in greater or lesser numbers 

 at Penikese, Muskeget, Chatham, Monomoy, and Nauset, the largest colonies 



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COMMON TERN ON NEST WITH YOUNG IN BACKGROUND. NOTE LONG WINGS AND 

 THE COMPARATIVELY SHORT TAIL 

 Photographed by Edward Howe Forbush 



being at Muskeget and Chatham. At Chatham and Muskeget there was 

 great mortality among the young birds, and at Chatham many adult birds 

 were killed by rats. Elsewhere they do not seem to be increasing now. A 

 small number of Arctic Terns bred at several of the colonies last year. This 

 year only one colony was located — that on the north beach at Chatham, 

 which was wiped out. It was first swept by a high tide and later raided by 

 cats and skunks, which destroyed both eggs and young and drove the parent 

 birds away. Only a few pairs were known to breed anywhere on the Massa- 

 chusetts coast this year. 



Very few occupied nests of Least Terns were noted. On the south shore of 

 Martha's Vineyard, where for several years about 200 Terns of this species 

 have bred, less than 20 nests were reported. There were a few on Monomoy, 

 and a small number bred at other places on Cape Cod and on the mainland. 

 Not one was found on Nantucket where they formerly were reported. The 



