1890
July 3
Muskegat Island, Massachusetts 
  Cloudy most of the morning with one light shower. Afternoon
clear. Wind S.E.[south east]  all day blowing fresh at times.
  Breakfast at 7 a.m. and then out on the sand-hills
making directly for the breeding ground of the Rosiate Terns
at the N.E. end of the island. Took four steel traps with
light springs and ? jars wound with cotton. On reaching
the place where I found the colony of Roseate's nests last
evening  I set two traps in their nests and two beyond
in some nests which proved to be Wilson's Terns for I
caught both the birds and after examining them let
them go. They flew directly out to sea being evidently
much frightened although very little hurt.
  The Roseate Terns were apparently more intelligent or suspicious
for I failed to catch any of them although I tried the
traps in two places setting all four in a colony of about
a dozen pairs that I found nesting on the top of a high,
isolated sand knoll. I identified the birds absolutely with
my glass counting them as they dropped into the grass.
There was not a single Wilson's Tern among them. This
colony was my ???pact coming a space of only a few
square yards from the nests being within 12 metres of
one another. I also found a third colony in a low knoll
in the hollow just back of the ridge, all of the six
nests which it comprised containing only one egg each.
Three nests of the large colony held two eggs each but
some more than two. All of these nests were more or
less concealed by the beach grass and some were in
deep holes dug between two clumps or under the roots of a high
clump.
  Returned to the house at  1P.M. and immediately
after dinner set sail for Edgartown. The wind was strong