THE WATER-BIRDS. 249 



least tern is hardly longer than a swallow. It feeds with 

 equal readiness on insects and aquatic animals ; beetles, 

 crickets, grasshoppers, and spiders are all set down as forming 

 part of its diet. Four stomachs out of eight examined by Pro- 

 fessor Aughey contained from twenty-three to forty-nine locusts 

 each. The others had from four to forty-nine other insects 

 and remnants of fish, lizards, and crawfish. The three other 

 species have like records. Several gull-billed terns killed by 

 Wilson had eaten nothing but large aquatic spiders. Professor 

 Aughey's examination of six black terns revealed from forty- 

 seven to eighty-four locusts each in four, and from twenty- 

 eight to fifty-nine insects in the other two. There was the 

 usual complement of water animals in each. Among the more 

 maritime terns are the royal, sandwich, Caspian, roseate, and 

 sooty terns, and the noddies. These feed almost wholly on 

 small fish and mollusks. 



The more delicately tinted terns have been subjected to an 

 outrageous slaughter for their skins for millinery use, to gratify 

 a lingering taint of savagery in w^oman, a desire to adorn her- 

 self with feathers, — a la primitif. Wholesome legislation and 

 a more enlightened public opinion, however, are slowly com- 

 ing to the rescue of the disappearing birds. 



The Black Skimmer is a peculiar tern-like bird, wiiich has 

 its lower mandible about an inch longer than tlie upper. Its 

 food consists of shell-fish, shrimps, small crabs, sand-fleas, 

 etc., which are plowed from the water by the knife-like lower 

 mandible as the bird skims along with lowered head just 

 above the surface. 



The Jaegers form a small family. They resemble gulls in 

 their appearance, and are chiefly maritime, though sometimes 

 drifting inland ; they are parasites of the smaller terns and 

 gulls. Their favorite method of gaining a livelihood is to 

 pursue a gull or tern and so tire and pester it till it disgorges 

 its last meal, which is quickly devoured by tlie robber. An 

 inland straggler was found to have eaten fish, frogs, crawfish, 



