Penobscot Bay, Maine.
1896
July 12
(No 4)
birds. One lay on the top of a rock with four dead ones. I
doubt if the men took the trouble to kill a single bird
that fell wounded. Conary thinks that they must have shot
at least forty in all judging from the rate at which they
were bringing them down as he approached them. They
admitted to him & their neighbour & friend, the owner of Trumpet
Island also assured me, that they did not design making
any use whatever of these poor birds but that they were
shooting them simply for "sport". I was also told that they
are in the habit of spending whole days shooting down
Swallows with this same motive. The whole party - or rather
both parties - came, we understood, from Seal Harbor.
  After driving away the Tern slayers Conary & Watrous searched
Ship Island carefully for Sheldrake's nests. The former found a
nest containing a beautiful set of seven nearly fresh eggs on the
highest part of the island in a mowing field among dense
herds grass & red-top but within six feet of the edge of a
nearly vertical bluff at the foot of which the sea beats at high
tide. This nest would have been destroyed within a week or
less as they cut the grass in this field with a machine.
After photographing the nest & eggs I took them.
  Watrous found three Sheldrakes nests in a belt of beach peas
between the field & the shore, but one was old & another
had apparently been robbed lately; the third contained a
single fresh egg & was wholly without down. We did
not take this egg nor did I photograph the nest.
  After spending about an hour on Ship Island I returned
to Trumpet Island where I exposed the remainder of my
plates on Terns' nests of which a few had miraculously escaped.