66 Bulletin of the 



The ledge or reef was barely fifty-five yards long by about twenty 

 broad, a mere bank of limestone pebbles without a handful of sand, and 

 capped with a narrow flat bench of cement-like mud, evidently guano. On 

 this flat top were the nests of the Caspian Tern, about one hundred and ten 

 in all, often so close together that the sitting birds must have been able to 

 touch each other. Each nest was a neat saucer-shaped hollow, a little less 

 than seven inches in diameter, made of limestone pebbles about the size of 

 chestnuts and neatly lined or paved with similar, but apparently flatter peb- 

 bles. Sometimes there was an outer rim of pebbles raised a little above the 

 surrounding level, sometimes the rim was flush with the surface. Not a 

 stick or straw or fiber of any kind entered into the structure, and I found 

 no vegetation of any kind on the reef. Not a single egg was found in any 

 of these nests, although most of the nests of the Common Tern in the 

 shingle close by contained one fresh egg each. Most of the eggs in the 

 heaps were much incubated (the embryos dead but not much decomposed), 

 and some of them must have been just ready to hatch when taken from 

 the nests. Two newly hatched young were found burrowing among the 

 coarse pebbles and from the fact that they were in a dying condition it is 

 not unlikely that they were hatched after the eggs were removed from the 

 nests. 



The old birds were quite unsuspicious at first and constantly flew over 

 and past me at distances of twenty yards or less and I watched them and 

 the Common Terns carefully for an hour or more in the hope of finding 

 some other species. Finally one of each kind was shot, after which the Cas- 

 pians all withdrew to a neighboring island and did not return until after 

 my departure. The fog was so dense that I was held prisoner for a couple 

 of hours in spite of my desire to get away and let the troubled birds return. 

 I fear that this was the only colony of this species in the Beaver group, and 

 after such persecution it is scarcely likely that they will return to this place 

 next season. 



4. (70). Common Tern; Wilson's Tern, Sterna hinindo. Known to 

 the fishermen pretty generally as "Lake Erie Gull," and said to have ap- 

 peared at the Beavers only within the last few years, but this is doubtless a 

 mistake. Two small colonies only were found, about one hundred pairs in 

 each, and on neighboring islands. On one island the nests were among 

 the pebbles, on the other in the sand. Tn neither place was there any 

 lining, merely a saucer-like depression in the pebbles or sand holding a 

 single fresh egg. Doubtless the birds had been robbed as were the Caspian 

 Terns. 



I searched in vain for other species of terns, as well as for the Ring- 

 billed Gull. Larus delazvarensis ; the three species alread mentioned were the 

 only members of the family of which I found any trace. 



{To be continued.) 



