Brewster on Terns of the New England Coast. 17 
and remove to some other spot. The same bar is apt to be resorted 
to daily, and if sufficiently elevated to be beyond the reach of the 
tides, it is all the more likely to be chosen. 
About the middle of June — the time varying somewhat with differ- 
ent localities — the Terns repair to their breeding-grounds and begin 
to deposit their eggs. Muskegat, the outermost of a group of low, 
sandy islands that with Nantucket form the breakwater of the Vine- 
yard Sound, is, and has been since time immemorial, the largest breed- 
ing station of the Terns on the New England coast. It is crescentic in 
shape, three miles long by one across at the broadest part, and un- 
inhabited. The beach along the eastern shore is steep and bold, and 
in the calmest summer weather the heavy surges from the open 
ocean break upon the shifting sands with an incessant sullen roar. 
Upon the Sound side shallows and sand-bars extend for miles in 
every direction, and it is said that at low tide one may wade across 
to Tuckernuck, more than a mile distant. The interior of the island 
rises in rolling sand-hills, which are sparsely clothed with beach- 
grass and a stunted growth of poison ivy, while a few scattered 
clumps of bayberry-bushes afford the nearest approach to arboreal 
vegetation. Were it not for man, — who, alas ! must be ranked as 
the greatest of all destroyers, — the Terns would here find an asylum 
sufficiently secure from all foes. But season after season the poor 
birds are daily robbed of their eggs by the fishermen, while frequent 
yachting parties invade their stronghold and shoot them by hun- 
dreds, either in wanton sport or for their wings, which are presented 
to fair companions. Then the graceful vessel spreads her snowy 
sails and glides blithely away through the summer seas. All is 
gayety and merriment on board, but among the barren sand-hills, 
fast fading in the distance, many a poor bird is seeking its missing 
mate ; many a downy little orphan is crying for the food its dead 
mother can no longer supply ; many a pretty speckled egg lies cold 
and deserted. Buzzing flies settle upon the bloody bodies, and the 
tender young pine away and die. A graceful pearl-tinted wing 
surmounts'a jaunty hat for a brief season, and then is cast aside, and 
Muskegat lies forgotten, with the bones of the mother and her off- 
spring bleaching on the white sand. This is no fancy sketch ; all 
over the world the sad destruction goes on. It is indeed the price 
of blood that is paid for nodding plumes. Science may be, nay, cer- 
tainly is, cruel at times, but not one tithe of the suffering is caused 
by her disciples that the votaries of the fickle goddess Fashion yearly 
sanction. 
VOL. IV. 
2 
