Birds and all Nature, Vol. IV, No. 2, August 1898

    – James Buckham.

THE COMMON TERN

ACCORDING to Colonel Goss, these birds are abundant on the Atlantic coast, decreasing in numbers west, and are rare and exceptional on the Pacific coast. They are migratory, arriving from the middle of April to the first of May, returning as early as the first of September. Their habitat is chiefly eastern temperate North America and various parts of the eastern hemisphere, breeding irregularly throughout the range. The nests have been found from the south coast of Florida to the Arctic circle, on the lakes in Wisconsin, and in large numbers in several of the Magdalen Isles, Gulf of St. Lawrence. Writers disagree as to the composition of their nests, some maintaining that they are made of seaweeds and grasses, others that they are without material of any kind, the eggs lying upon the bare ground in a slight depression in the sand. The eggs are three or four, of a pale blueish or greenish drab, thickly and rather evenly spotted and blotched with varying shades of light and dark brown, with shell markings of pale lilac, ovate in form.

Mr. George H. Mackay has described the Terns of Muskeget Island, Massachusetts, and in a recent article in the "Auk," he says: "Civilization is continually encroaching upon the places along the coast occupied by the Terns until there remain at the present time few localities adapted for such breeding resorts. I visited and remained on Muskegon Island July 3-5, 1897, and while there made, as has heretofore been my custom, an exhaustive examination of all the breeding grounds of the Terns. I found on visiting Gravelly Island a considerable falling off from the status of June, 1896, in both nests and eggs; the occupants were also different, being now almost entirely Common Terns, its former possessors having to a large extent abandoned it." Mr. Mackay has been endeavoring to protect the Terns from the destructive encroachments of hunters and so-called "eggers." He says that this season the Terns arrived at Muskeget in large flocks, thousands dropping from the sky when they were first observed. The number of young birds was unusually large, larger than has been before noticed, which result is probably due to the protection which has been extended to them throughout the breeding season, a condition they have not before enjoyed.

This Tern enjoys a large assortment of names: Sea Swallow, Wilson's Tern, Red Shank, Mackerel Gull, and Summer Gull, are a few of them by which it is known in various localities. In several places on the Atlantic coast it breeds in company with other species, such as Forster's, Arctic, and Roseate Terns, the Laughing Gull, and others. Here they breed by thousands, fairly filling the air when disturbed. They place their nests all over the land above high water line, on the beach, on the sides of the bluffs, and even in the garden cultivated by the lighthouse keeper. At Gull Island fresh eggs can be obtained from the 10th of June to the middle of July, as egging parties keep them cleaned off about as fast as they are laid. Public opinion is rapidly coming to the rescue of these beautiful birds, and we may reasonably hope that they may not be wholly exterminated. In connection with this article, we call the reader's attention to Vol. I, pages 103-104, where the Black Tern is depicted and described.

BIRDS AND ANIMALS IN THE PHILIPPINES

I DOUBT if any islands have such a countless variety of animals and flying and creeping things as the Philippines. A stubby variety of horses, fat and furry ponies, is used in Manila and towns. Oxen and a species of Buffaloes are used for heavy draft purposes. The mountains teem with deer. Goats, Swine, Rabbits, and Sheep abound in the mountains and forests in all degrees of wildness. The wild hogs on Samar have sometimes killed natives. There are several hundred varieties of birds, and about twenty that are not known elsewhere. Parrots are more common in the backwoods than Robins are here. Among the forests close to the coasts are found peculiar birds of the Swallow tribe. They make a strange food that the Chinese are so fond of – the bird's nest. Hundreds of natives earn their sole livelihood by hunting at certain seasons for these birds' nests and selling them to the Chinese. Of Monkeys there are a dozen varieties. Bats are simply enormous. They are of the vampire variety. No wonder there is a vast deal of superstition and dread among people in the tropics concerning vampires. They are frightfully uncanny. I have seen vampire bats with bodies as large as common house cats, and with wings that expand five feet from tip to tip. Let any one be seated or strolling along some moonlight night and have one of those black things come suddenly swooping down past him, and he will have some cause for nervous prostration. I knew one of those Bats to go sailing into the big hotel dining room at Manila one evening when dinner was serving. It came as a horrible apparition. Some women fainted and others shrieked as they went under the tables. The men ran out of the room.

"The seacoast is rich in many forms of fish. The natives, like the Hawaiians, know how to catch them, too. All the natives in the Philippines that I ever knew about (except the rich and aristocratic people in Manila) are fishers. They catch a species of mullet there that is delicious. When these fish come up the coast from the China Sea in schools, the natives will abandon any occupation and even leave a sick hammock to go out and angle off the coast."