LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND TEENS. 273 



northward, but the breath of ocean is still chill and cold. Indeed, the season 

 is commonly far advanced and the apple orchards in. bloom inland ere the 

 winter gulls are gone to their distant breeding grounds. Scarcely has the 

 rear-guard of their legions departed, when the terns begin to appear. 



The least terns, although the smallest and seemingly the most 

 delicate of their tribe, arrive first. By the middle of May they ap- 

 pear in certain favored spots — for they are not anywhere very 

 numerous — and small colonies of from 10 to 50 pairs are soon formed 

 at various points along the shores of Cape Cod and upon some of 

 the more sandy islands in the Vineyard Sound. 



Nesting. — The localities usually selected by the least tern for 

 nesting are broad, flat, open sand beaches, entirely devoid of vegeta- 

 tion, where there are more or less small stones and bits of shells 

 scattered about, among which the eggs are quite difficult to detect. 

 The eggs are usually laid well above, the reach of the ordinary high 

 tides, but occasionally the combination of a heavy gale with the 

 spring tides will result in the washing out of a whole colony. This 

 has occurred several times on the south shore of Marthas Vineyard, 

 where the beaches are low and much exposed. Whereas other terns 

 almost always nest on islands, the least tern frequently breeds on 

 suitable beaches on the mainland if they are not too near human 

 habitations. The depredations of cats, rats, or small boys will 

 drive them away from much frequented beaches. 



In the northern portion of its range, at least, these terns usually 

 select a section of beach somewhat apart from other species, though 

 they often associate to some extent with piping plovers. In the 

 Carolinas they are found breeding among or near the common terns 

 and black skimmers. The nest is merely a small hollow scooped in 

 the sand, in which usually two eggs are laid, occasionally three, and 

 very rarely four; the larger numbers are more frequent northward 

 and less so southward. 



On May 8, 1903, I found a small breeding colony of least terns 

 on Lake Key, one of the Florida Keys, a low, flat island, with sandy 

 or shelly beaches, frequented by migrating shore birds. Beyond a 

 narrow strip of low mangroves, just above the beach, we came upon 

 a small, shallow, muddy pond, where a small but very noisy colony 

 of black-necked stilts were breeding. The least terns' nests, about 

 40 of them, were on a narrow strip of beach on the shere of this pond, 

 and consisted of little hollows in the sand, or finely broken shells, 

 of which the beach was composed. Most of the nests contained two 

 eggs, some only one, and those that we collected were all fresh. The 

 nests were strung along in a row a few feet apart. A few pairs of 

 Wilson's plover were breeding on the beaches and among the small 

 mangrove bushes. In the Florida Keys and West Indies the eggs 

 of the least tern are gathered for food. The bird is locally known 



