556 BIEDS — LAKIDJE. 



They are already paired, but judging by the occasional bickeriuga and jealousies that 

 arise, even the more sedate females are not above a little harmless flirtation. It is a 

 pretty sight to see the mated birds sitting aide by side upon some long sand-spit, all 

 with their breasts turned to the soft morning breeze, and each little glossy black cap 

 glistening in the sunlight. Forty or fifty there may be altogether, with others continually 

 arriving from the distant fishing-grounds. As the incoming birds settle among their 

 fellows, a low murmur of welcome runs through the assembled throng, and fifty pairs of 

 wing are simultaneously raised above their owner's backs. It is like the greeting offered 

 by men to one whom they delight to honor, save that among these simple sea-birds even 

 the humblest are rarely neglected. Those individuals occupying the higher portion of th» 

 bar are squatted on the warm sand, or lying with wings partially extended to the grate- 

 ful rays of the sun, while along the water's edge many are washing and pluming them- 

 selves, scattering the salt spray in every direction, or toying with the lapping waves. 

 As the rising tide encroaches on their domain, numbers of the more careless are floated 

 off their teet, when they taks wing and alight again among the rest. In this way the 

 area continually narrows, until the birds are massed in a compact body upon the highest 

 point. When this at length becomes submerged they all take wing and remove to some 

 other spot. The same bar is apt to be resorted to daily, and if sufficiently elevated to 

 be beyond the reach of the tides, it is all the more likely to be cTiosen. 



" About the middle of June — the time varying somewhat with different localities — the 

 Terns repair to their breeding-grounds and begin to deposit their eggs. Mnskegat, the 

 outermost of a group of low, sandy islands that with Nantucket form the breakwater of 

 Vineyard Sound, is, and has been since time immemorial, the largest breeding station of 

 the Terns on the New England coast. It is cresoentic in shape, three miles long by one 

 across at the broadest part, and uninhabited. The beach along the eastern shore is 

 steep and bold, and in the calmest summer weather the heavy surges from the open 

 ocean break upon the shifting sands with an incessant sullen roar. Upon the Sound 

 side shallows and sand- bars extend for miles in every direction, and it is said that at 

 low tide one may wade across to Tuokernuck, more than a mile distant. The interior 

 of the island rises in rolling sand-hills, whjph are sparsely clothed with beach-grass and 

 a stunted growth of poison ivy, while a few scattered clumps of bayberry-bushes afford 

 the nearest approach to arboreal vegetation. Were it not for man, — who, alas ! must be 

 ranked as the greatest of all destroyers, — the Terns would here find an asylam suflSciently 

 secure from all foes. But season after season the poor birds are daily robbed of their 

 eggs by fishermen, while frequent yachting parties invade their strongholds and shoot 

 them by hundreds, either in wanton sport or for their wings, which are presented to 

 fair companions. Then the graceful vessel spreads her snowy sails and glides blithely 

 away through the summer seas. All is gayety and merriment on board, but among the 

 barren sand-hills, fast fading in the distance, many a poor bird is seeking its missing 

 mate ; many a downy little orphan is crying f jr the food the dead mother can no longer 

 supply; many a speckled egg lies cold and deserted. Buzzing fiies settle upon the 

 bloody bodies, and the tender young pine away and die, A graceful pearl-tinted wing 

 surmounts a jaunty hat for a brief season, and then is cast aside, and Muskegat lies for- 

 gotten, with the bones of the mother and her offspring bleaching on the white sand. 

 This no fancy sketch ; all over the world the sad destruction goes on. It is indeed th& 

 price of blood that is paid for nodding plumes. Science may be, nay, certainly ia, 

 crael at times, but not one tithe of the suffering is caused by her disciples that 

 votaries of the fickle goddess Fashion yearly sanction. 



"My first visit to Muskegat was in 1870, It was about the 25th of Jane when wft 



