\
A Visit to the Lake Erie Terns :23
Wings and powerful beaks, are utterly helpless. The seclusion of their existence seems to have left them incapable of dealing with an outside element. ~
A year ago I visited the nests on Little Chicken Island. At that time we found a few young birds and a great number of eggs. Most of the young birds were not more than a few days old. and often a chick would be in the nest with unhatched eggs. This year our visit was made just three days later, but the nesting season was much farther advanced. On both occasions I was one of a party from the Ohio Lake Laboratory at Sandusky.
The little party who visited Hen and Chickens last luly consisted of two women with opera-glasses and notebooks. and three men with botanical cases and camera,—a very harmless, sunburned, unconventional company. We made our start from Put-in-Bay. one of the most pictur' esque islands of the lake, and famous as the scene of Perry‘s victory. Our launch was engaged the evening before. so that we were ready for an early start. At six o'clock we were on hand, eating a picnic break> fast on the boat landing. At seven our engineer appeared. and. an hour and a half later. we landed on HOld Hen," delighted to reach firm [and after a ten-mile ride in the trough of the waves.
This island is at a considerable distance from any other of its size, and is in itself an interesting study. Tame pigs and chickens seemed at first the only inhabitants. Sheep, rabbits and a perfectly fearless foxvsquirrel were next discovered. Ring-necked Pheasants. Marsh and Crow Black» birds, Kingbirds. Olive-sided Flycatchets and Pewees, Red-eyed Vireos. Song Sparrows, and Sandpipers seemed to constitute the whole bird stock of the place. The island is rocky, mostly covered with soil heavy enough to sustain large trees, but exposed about the shore. where wild flowers and mosses flourish in the clefts. Great masses of rock have broken away from the mainland and slipped down, leaving narrow fissures in which the water plays with a gurgling, slapping sound In some places the industrious waves have brought quantities of pebbles and heaped them up between the masses of granite, forming a sort of beach. Sandpipers dodged in and out among the rocks as we followed them and then reappeared. walking on the pebbles at the water's edge.
A skiff was secured from the boat-house, and at ten the party set out for Little Chicken. From a distance we noticed several Terns flying over the island. As we approached. the birds rose from it in a cloud, scattered, returned. and hung over our heads, screaming and circling wildly about. We landed cautiously. fearful of stepping on the eggs or young birds which lay everywhere on the stones. The island is a mass of boulders, many of them hardly larger than a man's fist. Its whole surface, above the usual high-water line, is used for nesting. Where drifted sea-weed or chips are
