CHAPTER XCIII 



THE COMMON ''TERNER 



With the month of May come the "dahrs," and on a fine 

 day, when the sun gleams from the wavelets raised b}' the 

 gentle sea-breeze, you ma}^ sometimes see a number of these 

 graceful birds playing about over the water — hawking for 

 flies, which they chase and catch after the manner of a 

 puit or night-jar ; indeed, in the summer dawn 'tis hard 

 to distinguish which of the three birds is hawking over the 

 reed-beds for the " mingen," that have got up early to enjoy 

 their ephemeral lives — the birds climbing the air, turning this 

 way and that, seizing the "mingen " by the hundred. 



And with May the terns are gone ; though I saw one a year 

 or two back in August, hawking at dawn for flies above a 

 reed-bed, filling its crop, as I suspect, to take home to some 

 young ones not far away ; but no nest have I ever seen 

 taken, though one reads of colonies of " blue dahrs " in 

 days gone by. 



HERRING-GULLS. 



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