230 
BLACK SKIMMER. 
from each other, to congregate again towards morning, previously to their 
alighting on a spot to rest, has appeared to me truly wonderful ; and I have 
been tempted to believe that the place of rendezvous had been agreed upon 
the evening before. They have a great - enmity towards Crows and 
Turkey Buzzards when at their breeding ground, and on the first appear- 
ance of these marauders, some dozens of Skimmers at once give chase to 
them, rarely desisting until quite out of sight. 
Although parties of these birds remove from the south to betake them- 
selves to the eastern shores, and breed there, they seldom arrive at Great 
Egg Harbour before the middle of May, or deposit their eggs until a month 
after, or about the period when, in the Floridas and on the coast of Georgia 
and South Carolina, the young are hatched. To these latter sections of the 
country we will return, reader, to observe their actions at this interesting 
period. I will present you with a statement by my friend the Rev. John 
Bachman, which he has inserted in my journal. “ These birds are very 
abundant, and breed in great numbers on the sea islands at Bull’s Bay. 
Probably twenty thonsand nests were seen at a time. The sailors collected 
an enormous number of their eggs. The birds screamed all the while, and 
whenever a Pelican or Turkey Buzzard passed near, they assailed it by 
hundreds, pouncing on the back of the latter, that came to rob them of their 
eggs, and pursued them fairly out of sight. They had laid on the dry sand, 
and the following morning we observed many fresh-laid eggs, when some 
had been removed the previous afternoon.” Then, reader, judge of the 
deafening angry cries of such a multitude, and see them all over your head 
begging for mercy as it were, and earnestly urging you and your cruel 
sailors to retire and leave them in the peaceful charge of their young, or to 
settle on their lovely rounded eggs, should it rain or feel chilly. 
The Skimmer forms no other nest than a slight hollow in the sand. The 
eggs, I believe, are always three, and measure an inch and three quarters in 
length, an inch and three-eighths in breadth. As if, to be assimilated to the 
colours of the birds themselves, they have a pure white ground, largely 
patched or blotched with black or very dark umber, with here and there a 
large spot of a light purplish tint. They are as good to eat as those of most 
Gulls, but inferior to the eggs of Plovers and other birds of that tribe. The 
young are clumsy, much of the same colour as the sand on which they lie, 
and are not able to fly until about six weeks, when you now perceive their 
resemblance to their parents. They are fed at first by the regurgitation of 
the finely macerated contents of the gullets of the old birds, and ultimately 
pick up the shrimps, prawns, small crabs, and fishes dropped before them. 
As soon as they are able to walk about, they cluster together in the manner 
of the young of the Common Gannet, and it is really marvellous how the 
