298 
ORDERS OF BIRDS— LONG-WINGED SWIMMERS 
less of being dragged about by the stronger bird, 
until the goose was glad to purchase peace by 
retreating. During all these battles, the female 
sat firmly on her eggs, but pointed her bill at 
the sky, and screamed encouragement with all 
the power of her vocal machinery. Eventually 
the three eggs were hatched, and the young were 
reared successfully. 
On certain islands along the coast of Maine, 
where Gulls nest in considerable numbers, the 
Bird Protection Committee of the American 
Ornithologists’ Union, under the leadership of 
Mr. William Dutcher, has done important and 
effective work in securing the protection of 
the birds by the owners of the islands. As if to 
reward Mr. Dutcher for his labors in their be- 
half, the Gulls permit him to photograph them 
on their nests, at very short range. In England, 
the Zoological Society of London has awarded 
its medal to several persons for noteworthy 
services in protecting Gulls from destruction. 
The Common Tern , 1 but for the timely 
interference of the Lacey Law, would ere now 
have become the very Uncommon Tern. The 
persons who for years slaughtered birds whole- 
sale and without check for “millinery purposes” 
would have exterminated this species, at least 
all along the Atlantic coast. 
In an evil hour, some person without com- 
passion, and with no more taste for the eternal 
fitness of things than a Texas steer, conceived 
the idea of placing stuffed Terns on women’s 
hats, as “ornaments.” Now, unfortunately, 
woman’s one universal weakness lies in the 
belief that whatever the Fashion Fetish com- 
mands that she shall wear, that is necessarily 
a beautiful thing for her to deck herself withal. 
As a result, we have seen thousands of angular, 
dagger-beaked, sharp-winged, dirty-plumaged, 
rough-looking and distorted Terns, each one a 
feathered Horror, clamped to the fronts and 
sides of the hats of women, and worn as head 
ornaments! 
Those objects spoke very poorly for their wear- 
ers ; for since the daughters of Eve first began to 
wear things on their heads, the Rumpled Tern 
is the ugliest thing ever devised for head-gear. 
Thus has been developed a new bird species, 
which we will christen as above, with Sterna 
horrida as its Latin name. Thanks to the 
1 Ster'na hi-run'do. Average length, 14.50 inches. 
Lacey Law, however, the wearing of stuffed 
birds has, with fashionable people, quite gone 
out of fashion, and the only exceptions now 
seen are on the heads of servants, who, for mo- 
tives of economy, are wearing the cast-off milli- 
nery of their mistresses. 
The Tern is much smaller than the herring- 
gull ; it has a very short neck, very long and an- 
gular wings, and when on the ground is not a 
bird of beautiful form. On the wing, however, 
and especially over the breakers, its appearance 
is graceful and pleasing. It is a white and gray 
bird, excepting the black bonnet which covers 
the upper half of its head and neck ; and its bill, 
feet, and legs are coral red. 
Along our Atlantic coast, and especially 
from Nantucket to Hatteras, it was once a very 
familiar bird, and its escape from annihilation 
has been of the narrowest. The Lacey Law, 
and the anti-bird-millinery laws passed by New 
York and other states, effectually stopped the 
sale of wild-birds and their plumage for “mil- 
linery purposes,” and the Terns are no longer 
slaughtered as heretofore. In several places 
where they breed they are now protected, and 
henceforth should slowly increase in number. 
There are now but few localities on our At- 
lantic coast between New Jersey and Nova 
Scotia where the Common Tern, or “Sea Swal- 
low,” breeds. Two of these are Muskeget Island, 
northwest of Nantucket, and Gardiner’s Island. 
The once numerous colony that formferly in- 
habited Gull Island, near the eastern end of 
Long Island, was broken up and driven off by a 
“military necessity,” no less important than the 
building of a modern fort to protect the City 
of New York. By a strange coincidence, it 
was the 12-inch guns of our coast-defence ar- 
tillery that drove these much-persecuted birds 
from one of their favorite nesting-grounds. 
THE SKIMMER FAMILY. 
Rynchopidae. 
The Black Skimmer- is a tern in form, but 
without the spear-like bill of the latter for 
spearing fish. Its lower mandible is formed 
for use as a cut-water, — long, thin, rather 
broad, and flattened vertically. The upper 
mandible is similarly shaped, but is shorter. 
2 Rijn' chops ni'gra. Length, about 16 inches. 
