29 
Family Gavidce. — Loons. 
Loons no doubt once bred commonly in the more retired 
ponds over a great part of the State. Thirty years ago they 
were not rare in the breeding season in the northern part 
of Worcester County, where they were observed to nest at 
different localities by Messrs. C. E. Ingalls and C. E. 
Bailey. I am not aware that they now nest anywhere in the 
State. Ho doubt they would have been driven from the 
interior of the State long ago, had they not been well able 
to take care of themselves by diving. 1 They are still to be 
seen in the migrations in most of the larger and more re- 
mote bodies of water, and seem to maintain their numbers 
fairly well along the coast, as does the red-throated loon also. 
Family Laridce. — Gulls and Terns. 
Certain of these birds were once very abundant in the 
breeding season on Long Island Sound, and bred also on 
suitable islands all along the Massachusetts coast. Miss 
Katharine P. Loring of Prides Crossing, Beverly, writes 
that about forty years ago there were large numbers of 
“ gulls ” in spring at Gooseberry Island and Eagle Island 
off the Beverly shore, and that these islands were “ covered 
with their eggs.” The birds referred to were probably terns, 
or “ mackerel gulls,” as they are called locally. The Arctic 
and roseate terns are both recorded as breeding at Beverly 
and Ipswich as late as 1846 and 1869 respectively. 2 These 
terns, together with the common and least terns and the 
laughing gull, bred abundantly along our coast as late as 
the early part of the nineteenth century. They were grad- 
ually driven off the breeding grounds by eggers. In the 
decade before 1890 the demand for the plumage of gulls and 
terns for millinery purposes became so great that they were 
menaced with extermination. Mr. Geo. H. Mackay says 
that he has been informed that one party of gunners killed 
no less than ten thousand of these birds on Muskeget Island 
1 In 1907 a law was passed prohibiting the killing of loons on fresh water. If this can 
be enforced, they may breed again in our inland ponds. (See page 114.) 
2 11 Birds of Massachusetts,” Howe and Allen, p. 27. 
