The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1881-06-16
Trailicking in Calls Eggs.

In Long Island Sound, five miles off
the Guilford shore, is little island To-
cally known as Gull Island. 1t is per-
haps mile from Faulkner's Island,
where Captain o. N. Brooks has kept
that light for period of 1--WE think)
very nearly thirty years.
Gull Island, a little barren patch of
perhaps a fourth to half an acre, is the
annual breeding ground of thousands
of so-called gulls, not the true sea gull,
but the tern, commonly known as the
gull ON the shores of the Sound. 1t is
said these birds have there every sum-
mer upward of a thousand nests-if the
bare little spots, scarcely followed out
any, in the sand where they lay their
eggs can be called nests. The nests
are so crowded that it is difficult to
walk about without crushing the eggs.
Captain Brooks bought the island many
years ago of the Federal Government
for the sake of benefiting by the gulls'
eggs and also to preserve the birds from
extinction by ruthless egg hunters.
From his watch tower he can overlook
the little island, note the annual ar
rival and departure of the birds, and
also protect them from parties who
would without such ownership and su-
pervision overrun the spot, destroy the
eggs and kill off the birds. He says
that for period of nearly thirty years
he has never known the annual arrival
of the gulls in the spring to vary more
than day or two. Uusually it is on the
same day of the month; and itnever va
ries more than two days at once, re-
gardless of weather.
Their eggs, two to a nest, are about
the size of pullet's eggs; but it seems
they are more valuable. Instead of
being, as many persons think, spoilt by
q rank, fishy taste, they are much pre-
ferred to hens eggs; and Captain Brooks
gets fifty cents a dozen for them when
hens eggs are selling at twenty-five.
He takes all the eggs from the time of
the first laying-about mid May, or a
few days earlier-until the end of about
six weeks, or near the end of June.
Then he not only stops this raid himself
but forbids others to go upon the island,
and lets the birds 90 on and rear their
broods. For they do not, curiously
enough, desert their nests because of
this repeated robbery, but keep on lay
ing till they find their eggs are left un-
disturbed. That island ought to be
worth to its owner 800 u year for its
| eggs; and we presume he didn't pay as
much as that for it in the first place.
The eggs are said to show q sort of sal
mon color when cooked and to be very
fine eating. Most of the little island is
covered with n coarse sedge grass,
where the nesting chiefly is, but SO
crowded is all the available space that
hundreds of birds lay their eggs outside
the line of beach grass, on the sand
where the rising tide would probably
reach them, and all of these, at all
times, Captain Brooks appropriAets. -
| Uu,ttOrd (C0nR.) Times.
| General John NGibbon, who COM
manded u column in the expedition in
which Custer was killed, publishes the
| following card: Il don't know if it is
worth while to contradict the absurd
statement said to emanatc from the In
dian, Rain-in-the-F Face, regarding the
mutilation of General Clusters body.
Indians are very fond of romancing, eS-
pecially when they think they can make
white men open their eyes with wonder
or horror. Ibid not myself see Gener-
III Custer BODY. but all the officers who
did united ,.t the time in the statement
that it was not mutilated in the slight
est way, not even scalped."
1t is thought that over 100, 900, 900
feet of pitch-pine timber and lumber
will be shipped from the port of Darien,
GA, this ear. A little over 50, 900, ,0GO
feet was shipped last year.