. The Oölogist for the student of birds, their nests and eggs . ur arrival I wasup and attired in canvas huntingclothes and with collecting basket wasaway to the salt marshes at the middeof the island on the western side. Theexperience was a novel delight and Iwas enthusiastic in my endeavors tocollect full fresh sets of all speciesrepresented in the islands Laughing Gull was found nesting,thousands of pairs and fresh eggswere found in most all the nests, insets of threes and fours. Many ofthese sets were merely laid in depres-sions in the windrows of dry seaweed in the marshes an
. The Oölogist for the student of birds, their nests and eggs . ur arrival I wasup and attired in canvas huntingclothes and with collecting basket wasaway to the salt marshes at the middeof the island on the western side. Theexperience was a novel delight and Iwas enthusiastic in my endeavors tocollect full fresh sets of all speciesrepresented in the islands Laughing Gull was found nesting,thousands of pairs and fresh eggswere found in most all the nests, insets of threes and fours. Many ofthese sets were merely laid in depres-sions in the windrows of dry seaweed in the marshes and incubationhad already commenced in several ofthe sets. This was early in May. Inthe nesting colonies, the gulls arose inclouds, wheeling in screaming egionsoverhead and among them were hun-dreds of Forsters and Gull-billed Gulls were in easy range andit was an easy matter to bring downon the wing a few specimens of eachspecies I desired. The first causedconsternation among the birds and thebirds that were sitting upon nests left 172 THE OOLOGI8T. < o Or* ft o £0 w<u cC O)0) 1. JC■M *t- o St o C THE OOLOGIST 178 them for the air, thus augumentingthe clouds of wheeling birds overheaduntil the sky was nearly obscured. I collected a nice series of sets ofthe Laughing Gull. The eggs wereusually three to the set, though severalsets of four were found. The groundsometimes brown, mottled, blotchedand speckled with varying shades ofbrown and subdued marking of laven-der. The average size is by nests were composed of trashocean debris of all varieties—the driftfrom the Equinoctual storms—which is piled up in the marshesmarshes by the invading of the nests were rather sub-stantially constructed of marsh grass,sea weed and trash hollowed of the birds remained on theirnests until I approached to within ashort distance, their snowy plumagecontrasting beautifully with the greenof the marshes, and their heads oddlyoffsetting the wh
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidologistf, booksubjectbirds
