556 BIRDS—LARID&. 
They are already paired, but judging by the occasional bickerings and jealousies that 
arise, even the more sedate females are not above a little harmless flirtation. It is a 
pretty sight to see the mated birds sitting side by side upon some long sand-spit, all 
with their breasts turned to the soft morning breeze, and each little glossy black cap 
glistening in the sunlight. Forty or fifty there may be altogether, with others continually 
arriving from the distant fishing-grounds. As the incoming birds settle among their 
fellows, a low murmur of welcome runs through the assembled throng, and fifty pairs of 
wing are simultaneously raised above their owner’s backs. Itis like the greeting offered 
by men to one whom they delight to honer, save that among these simple sea-birds even 
tke humblest are rarely neglected. Those individuals occupying the higher portion of the 
bar are squatted on the warm sand, or lying with wings partially extended to the grate- 
ful rays of the sun, while along the water’s edge many are washing and pluming them- 
selves, scattering the salt spray in every direction, or toying with the lapping waves. 
As the rising tide encroaches on their domain, numbers of the more careless are floated 
off their teet, when they take wing and alight again among the resi. In this way the 
area continually narrows, until tho birds are massed in a compact body upon the highest 
point. When this at length becomes submerged they all take wing 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 different localities—the 
Terns repair to their breeding-grounds and begin to deposit their eggs. Muskegat, the 
outermost of 2 group of low, sandy islands that with Nantucket form the breakwater of 
Vineyard Sound, is, and has been since time immemorial, the largest breeding 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 uninhabited. 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, whieh are sparsely clothed with beach-grass and 
a stunted growth of poison ivy, while a few scattered clumps of bayberry-bashes 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 rebbed of their 
eggs by fishermen, while frequent yachting parties invade their strongholds and shoot. 
them by hundreds, 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. Allis 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; mary a downy littie orphan is crying for the food the dead mother can no longer 
supply; many a 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 2 jaunty hat for a brief season, and then is cast aside, and Muskegat lies for- 
gotten, with the bones of the mother and her offspring bleaching on the white sand. 
This 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, certainly is, 
cruel at times, but not one tithe of the suffering is caused by her disciples that. 
votaries of the fickle goddess Fashion yearly sanction. 
‘My first visit to Muskegat was in 1870. It was about the 25th of June when we 
Se 
