THE COMMON TERN. 



563 



hard by; and at the Little Chicken, where our illustrations were secured 

 the following season by Mr. Walter C. Metz, of Newark. The latter island 

 boasts a clump of willows (Salix amygdaloides Andr.) and is half covered with 

 a growth of Smart-weed (Polygonum lapathifolium l^., P. persicaria L,., etc.). 

 Here the soft bedded masses of drift-wood proved to be the favorite nesting 

 site, altho gravel was not forsworn. At one spot I dug my toe into an empty 

 nest for a base and "fetching a compass" with my hands, touched eggs or 

 young in fifteen nests. Something like a thousand Terns claimed this reef for a 

 home, while two htmdred or more of visiting Black Terns, having done with 



C. Metz. 



NEST AND EGGS OF THE COMMON TERN. 



domestic cares long since, mingled idly in the circling throng, or betook them- 

 selves to undisturbed areas. 



The breeze of early morning having died down, the sun beat upon the 

 rocks unmercifully, cooking, I fear, many a tender baby Tern. We got away 

 as hastily as might be, not to interfere with the ministrations of the anxious 

 parents. Never have I felt so like a bold, bad buccaneer as upon this occasion, 

 and I warrant the Tern population heaved a sigh of relief when Bluebeard and 

 Blackbeard with Captain Kid(d) finally pushed from shore. 



More romantic still, was the scene at North Harbor Island, some six miles 

 further to the northwest. Here a limestone knob, two acres in extent, rough- 

 chiseled by the ancient glacier, supports a skirting fringe of gravel on one side, 

 and a considerable grove of hackberry trees in the center. As we drew near 

 this charming spot, toward sunset, the island with its attendant halo of timor- 

 ous Terns, rose out of the western sea like the fabled Atlantis in miniature, an 



