Jaegers 



dripping fish ready for a contemplated dinner. To dart away 

 from its tormentor, that darts, too, even more suddenly ; to outrace 

 the jaeger, although freighted with the fish, are tried resorts that 

 the little gull must finally despair of when the inevitable moment 

 arrives that the coveted fish has to be dropped for the pirate to 

 snatch up and bear away in triumph. 



Other gulls than the kittiwake suffer from this ocean prowler ; 

 their young and eggs are eaten, their food is taken out of their 

 very mouths. As they live so largely on the results of other 

 birds' efforts, the jaegers deserve to be branded as parasites, 

 which all the group are. Indeed, these birds that the English call 

 skuas, differ very little, if any, in habits. While all spend the 

 summer far north, the parasitic jaeger has really less claim to the 

 title of Arctic jaeger than either the pomarine or the long-tailed 

 species, which go within the Arctic Circle to nest. On an open 

 moor or tundra, in a slight depression of the ground, a rude nest 

 is scantily lined with grass, moss, or leaves. Sometimes this nest 

 is near the margin of the sea or lake, sometimes on an ocean 

 island and laid among the rocks. It contains from two to four — 

 usually two — light olive-brown eggs that are frequently tinged 

 with greenish and scrawled over with chocolate markings most 

 plentiful at the larger end, where they may run together and form 

 a blotch. 



By the end of September the jaegers begin their southerly 

 migration, reaching Long Island in October, regularly, and quite 

 as regularly leaving early in June. During the winter they play 

 the role of sea scavengers when they are not robbing the gulls, 

 that will actually disgorge a meal already safely stowed away 

 rather than submit to the harassing, petty tortures of these pirates. 

 Jaegers constantly pick up carrion and other rubbish cast up by 

 the sea or thrown overboard from a passing ship, for nothing in 

 the line of food, however putrid it may be, seems to miss the 

 mark of their rapacious appetites, as their Latin name, stercora- 

 rius, a scavenger, indicates. On land they always seek choicer 

 food, garnered by their own effort — berries, insects, eggs, little 

 birds, and mammals. 



The best trait the jaegers have is their uncommon cour- 

 age. Nothing that attacks their home or young is too large or 

 fierce for them to dash at fearlessly ; and by persistent teasing 

 and harassing, for the want of formidable weapons of defense, 



33 



