BLACK SKIMMER. 71 



from each other, to congregate again towards morning, previously to their 

 alighting on a spot to rest, has appeared to me truly wonderful; and I have 

 been tempted to believe that the place of rendezvous had been agreed upon 

 the evening before. They have a great enmity towards Crows and Turkey 

 Buzzards when at their breeding ground, and on the first appearance of these 

 marauders, some dozens of Skimmers at once give chase to them, rarely 

 desisting until quite out of sight. 



Although parties of these birds remove from the south to betake them- 

 selves to the eastern shores, and breed there, they seldom arrive at Great 

 Egg Harbour before the middle of May, or deposit their eggs until a month 

 after, or about the period when, in the Floridas and on the coast of Georgia 

 and South Carolina, the young are hatched. To these latter sections of the 

 country we will return, reader, to observe their actions at this interesting 

 period. I will present you with a statement by my friend the Rev. John 

 Bachman, which he has inserted in my journal. "These birds are very 

 abundant, and breed in great numbers on the sea islands at Bull's Bay. 

 Probably twenty thousand nests were seen at a time. The sailors collected 

 an enormous number of their eggs. The birds screamed all the while, and 

 whenever a Pelican or Turkey Buzzard passed near, they assailed it by hun- 

 dreds, pouncing* on the back of the latter, that came to rob them of their 

 eggs, and pursued them fairly out of sight. They had laid on the dry sand, 

 and the following morning we observed many fresh-laid eggs, when some 

 had been removed the previous afternoon." Then, reader, judge of the 

 deafening angry cries of such a multitude, and see them all over your head 

 begging for mercy as it were, and earnestly urging you and your cruel 

 sailors to retire and leave them in the peaceful charge of their young, or to 

 settle on their lovely rounded eggs, should it rain or feel chilly. 



The Skimmer forms no other nest than a slight hollow in the sand. The 

 eggs, I believe, are always three, and measure an inch and three quarters in 

 length, an inch and three-eighths in breadth. As if to be assimilated to the 

 colours of the birds themselves, they have a pure white ground, largely 

 patched or blotched with black or very dark umber, with here and there a 

 large spot of a light purplish tint. They are as good to eat as those of most 

 Gulls, but inferior to the eggs of Plovers and other birds of that tribe. The 

 young are clumsy, much of the same colour as the sand on which they lie, 

 and are not able to fly until about six weeks, when you now perceive their 

 resemblance to their parents. They are fed at first by the regurgitation of 

 the finely macerated contents of the gullets of the old birds, and ultimately 

 pick up the shrimps, prawns, small crabs, and fishes dropped before them. 

 As soon as they are able to walk about, they cluster together in the manner 

 of the young of the Common Gannet, and it is really marvellous how the 



