LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND TERNS. 197 

 GELOCHELIDON NILOTICA (Linnaeus). 

 GULL-BILLED TERN. 

 HABITS. 



This species was referred to by the earlier writers as the marsh 

 tern, on account of its preference for the salt marshes as a feeding 

 ground, and in many places as a breeding ground also ; but, based on 

 my limited experience with it on the Atlantic coast, I should say 

 that it hardly deserves that name, for, at the present time, on the 

 coasts of Virginia and the Carolinas, it seems to prefer to nest on 

 the sandy beaches. But, as it is a cosmopolitan species of wide dis- 

 tribution, its habits differ in different localities. It was formerly 

 much more abundant and more widely distributed on our Atlantic 

 coast than it is to-day, where it is now one of the rarest of the 

 terns. The reduction in its numbers and the restriction of its breed- 

 ing range may have resulted, by natural selection, in the survival of 

 those individuals which chose to breed on the beaches, where their 

 eggs were not so easily found, and the annihilation of those which 

 nested in the marshes. In support of this theory Mr. H. H. Bailey 

 (1913) says of its breeding habits on the Virginia coast : 



The nest location of the few remaining pair has changed from the inner side 

 of the island sand dunes and marsh edges to the open beach, but now well con- 

 cealed amongst the oyster shells, rocks, and pebbles, not an unsimilar location 

 from that of the oystercatcher. 



Doctor Stone (1908) regards it as " a rare straggler " on the New 

 Jersey coast to-day. He says : 



Formerly it bred rather commonly on the marshes of Cape May County, 

 where it was discovered by Wilson about 1813. In 1869 Tumbull regarded it as 

 rare. In 1886 Mr. H. G. Parker reported it still nesting at the lower end of 

 Seven Mile Beach, and Mr. C. S. Shick spoke of it as still present in 1890, 

 associating with the laughing gulls. We have no subsequent record for the 

 State. 



On the Virginia coast Doctor Rives (1890) referred to it as 

 "common at Cobb's Island, and breeds, formerly in great abun- 

 dance," indicating that k even at that date, it had begun to decrease. 

 He says further: 



I have been informed that great numbers of the eggs have formerly been 

 taken from the north end of Hog Island, adjoining Cobb's. 



Ten years later, in 1900, Captain Andrews reported to Mr. 

 Dutcher (1901) that the gull-billed terns on Cobb's Island had been 

 reduced to about a thousand. The following year, according to the 

 same authority, their number had been reduced to 300. In 1903 

 Doctor Chapman (1903) found only eight pairs there; and when 

 Doctor Bishop and I visited Virginia in 1907 we saw only two pairs 



