IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



a height in the air at once serve to identify 

 the bird here. Its voice is a harsh, unpleasant 

 scream entirely unlike any of the sounds made 

 by either common tern or herring gull. I was 

 sitting on the rocks of our harbor one after- 

 noon when I was startled by the scream of 

 this bird and saw one chasing another. Later 

 one of them darted at a great black-backed 

 gull and then launched itself at the water for 

 a fish. Audubon saw several pairs of this re- 

 markable bird in Labrador, but he confused 

 it with the Cayenne or royal tern, a bird of 

 much more southern distribution. Frazar also 

 found it there in 1884, and Mr. Bent and I saw 

 one at the mouth of the Natashquan River 

 on May 31, 1909. Captain Joncas recognized 

 the bird as la grande estorlette, and hoped to 

 show us its breeding-ground, but in this, to 

 my regret, he was unsuccessful. It was a good 

 bird to see and record, however. Long may it 

 live and multiply in Labrador! 



Another interesting ornithological experi- 

 ence at Old Romaine was with a family of 

 spotted sandpipers, the familiar teeter-peep of 

 the New England coast, — Valouette d. branle 

 queue the captain called it. At the mouth 



108 



