298 



OEDERS OP BIRDS— LONG-WINGED SWIMMERS 



less of being dragged about by the stronger bird, 

 until the goose was glad to purchase peace by 

 retreating. During all these battles, the female 

 sat firmly on her eggs, but pointed her bill at 

 the sky, and screamed encouragement with all 

 the power of her vocal machinery. Eventually 

 the three eggs were hatched, and the young were 

 reared successfully. 



On certain islands along the coast of Maine, 

 where Gulls nest in considerable numbers, the 

 Bird Protection Committee of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, under the leadership of 

 Mr. William Dutcher, has done important and 

 effective work in securing the protection of 

 the birds by the owners of the islands. As if to 

 reward Mr. Dutcher for his labors in their be- 

 half, the Gulls permit him to photograph them 

 on their nests, at very short range. In England, 

 the Zoological Society of London has awarded 

 its medal to several persons for noteworthy 

 services in protecting Gulls from destruction. 



The Common Tern, 1 but for the timely 

 interference of the Lacey Law, would ere now 

 have become the very Uncommon Tern. The 

 persons who for years slaughtered birds whole- 

 sale and without check for "millinery purposes" 

 would have exterminated this species, at least 

 all along the Atlantic coast. 



In an evil hour, some person without com- 

 passion, and with no more taste for the eternal 

 fitness of things than a Texas steer, conceived 

 the idea of placing stuffed Terns on women's 

 hats, as "ornaments." Now, unfortunately, 

 woman's one universal weakness lies in the 

 belief that whatever the Fashion Fetish com- 

 mands that she shall wear, that is necessarily 

 a beautiful thing for her to deck herself withal. 

 As a result, we have seen thousands of angular, 

 dagger-beaked, sharp-winged, dirty-plumaged, 

 rough-looking and distorted Terns, each one a 

 feathered Horror, clamped to the fronts and 

 sides of the hats of women, and worn as head 

 ornaments! 



Those objects spoke very poorly for their wear- 

 ers ; for since the daughters of Eve first began to 

 wear things on their heads, the Rumpled Tern 

 is the ugliest thing ever devised for head-gear. 

 Thus has been developed a new bird species, 

 which we will christen as above, with Sterna 

 horrida as its Latin name. Thanks to the 



1 Sler'na hi-run'do. Average length, 14.50 inches. 



Lacey Law, however, the wearing of stuffed 

 birds has, with fashionable people, quite gone 

 out of fashion, and the only exceptions now 

 seen are on the heads of servants, who, for mo- 

 tives of economy, are wearing the cast-off milli- 

 nery of their mistresses. 



The Tern is much smaller than the herring- 

 gull ; it has a very short neck, very long and an- 

 gular wings, and when on the ground is not a 

 bird of beautiful form. On the wing, however, 

 and especially over the breakers, its appearance 

 is graceful and pleasing. It is a white and gray 

 bird, excepting the black bonnet which covers 

 the upper half of its head and neck ; and its bill, 

 feet, and legs are coral red. 



Along our Atlantic coast, and especially 

 from Nantucket to Hatteras, it was once a very 

 familiar bird, and its escape from annihilation 

 has been of the narrowest. The Lacey Law, 

 and the anti-bird-millinery laws passed by New 

 York and other states, effectually stopped the 

 sale of wild-birds and their plumage for "mil- 

 linery purposes," and the Terns are no longer 

 slaughtered as heretofore. In several places 

 where they breed they are now protected, and 

 henceforth should slowly increase in number. 



There are now but few localities on our At- 

 lantic coast between New Jersey and Nova 

 Scotia where the Common Tern, or "Sea Swal- 

 low," breeds. Two of these are Muskeget Island, 

 northwest of Nantucket, and Gardiner's Island. 

 The once numerous colony that formerly in- 

 habited Gull Island, near the eastern end of 

 Long Island, was broken up and driven off by a 

 "military necessity," no less important than the 

 building of a modern fort to protect the City 

 of New York. By a strange coincidence, it 

 was the 12-inch guns of our coast-defence ar- 

 tillery that drove these much-persecuted birds 

 from one of their favorite nesting-grounds. 



THE SKIMMER FAMILY. 



Rynchopidae. 



The Black Skimmer 2 is a tern in form, but 

 without the spear-like bill of the latter for 

 spearing fish. Its lower mandible is formed 

 for use as a cut-water, — long, thin, rather 

 broad, and flattened vertically. The upper 

 mandible is similarly shaped, but is shorter. 



2 Ryn'chops ni'gra. Length, about 16 inches. 



