1890
July 30
Muskegat Island, Mass.
Clear with fog on early forenoon. Wind S.W., strong.
  Started for Muskegat with Fred Pease as skipper at 10A.M.
Beat up the harbor to above Katama where we ran into a dense fog 
and accordingly sailed about the harbor for an hour or two when 
we ran out into the ocean through the opening. On the beach we 
saw two or three dozen Macrorhamphus griseus which allowed us 
to pass within close gun range.
  Outside the opening we found an ugly sea running but as 
we approached Muskegat it became smoother. About a mile W. of 
that island we passed what Pease declared to be the largest flock 
of Terns he ever saw together over the water. There must have 
been several thousand strung out over a space  at least a mile 
long, all hovering & plunging over a school of bluefish.  Among them 
I saw one Short-tailed Tern, an adult in apparently full plumage. 
It was diving like the rest.
 Reached Muskegat at 3 P.M. As we rounded N.E. Point I saw 
a number of M. griseus, with many Peeps, feeding on the beach. 
Shortly after landing I started out going to the part of the island 
where I found the Roseate Terns breeding during my last visit. 
To-day the Terns of both species were all or nearly all in the air 
constantly which probably was due to the fact that most of 
their young were hatched.  I saw certainly four times as many 
all told as during my last visit but the Roseate Terns seemed 
much less numerous than then, perhaps because they are now 
more generally dispersed. The air as far as the eye could reach 
over the land was simply filled with clouds of birds & the noise 
was distracting. It affected Pease's nerves so much that he 
had to go back to the house & I found my own nerves 
giving way more than once. The Wilson's Terns were bolder 
than the Roseates to-day and dove at my head incessantly. 
I found not more than eight or ten live young young all