Reports of Field Agents 469 



REPORT OF EDWARD H. FORBUSH, GENERAL AGENT 

 FOR NEW ENGLAND 



Your representative for New England has devoted most of his energies 

 appHed in your service to the task of securing the passage of the Migratory 

 Bird Treaty Act, the most imperative matter regarding bird-protection for 

 the year. In this he has merely assisted the well-directed efforts of your 

 Secretary, who has reported in detail upon the campaign and its successful 

 result. An attempt has been made also in Massachusetts to secure better 

 protection for the Terns that have colonized on our shores. The Least 

 Tern, which now has been reduced to comparatively few individuals in the 

 Northeast, has been decreasing in numbers during the past three years. The 

 larger species have been troubled by encroachments on some of their breeding- 

 grounds, and may have been crowded off Muskeget Island to some extent by 

 the increase there of the Laughing Gull, although no direct evidence that the 

 latter molests them has been submitted. About thirty years ago, this Gull is 

 said to have been reduced in New England to some twenty pairs of birds — 

 the remnant left on Muskeget Island. Under protection they have since 

 increased so that now there are many thousands breeding there, and they 

 now appear along the coast in the breeding-season from Connecticut to 

 Maine. 



In the meantime, the Terns on this island have rather decreased in numbers. 

 In the winter of 1917-18, Wm. C. Adams, Chairman of the Massachusetts 

 Commissioners on Fisheries and Game, proposed to give some of the principal 

 Tern colonies special protection during their coming breeding-season. It was 

 recommended that wardens be allotted to guard five of the principal colonies 

 and to destroy cats and skunks that were decimating them. This was done, 

 and, apparently, as a result of this treatment, the birds have increased in 

 number and at least two new colonies have been started on Cape Cod, where 

 many young birds were successfully reared this season. Many of the eggs were 

 destroyed by a storm and high tide but the birds nested again successfully. 

 There has been a noticeable increase in the numbers of Common and Roseate 

 Terns and a lesser increase of Least Terns. Arctic Terns also have been re- 

 ported from time to time. The increase of Herring Gulls along the Maine 

 Coast probably is responsible for an accession to the number of this species 

 summering in Massachusetts. Many hundreds now remain on our coast all 

 summer and a few breed here. 



REPORT OF HERBERT K. JOB, DEPARTMENT 

 OF APPLIED ORNITHOLOGY 



During the past year requests for practical informatiou about attracting 

 or propagating birds, or both, have continued to come from all over this 



