642 STERNA HIRUNDO. 



In very stormy weather they fly little, but shelter them- 

 selves by lying on the shore. When satiated with food, or 

 tired, they rest in the same manner, and, when the young arc 

 able to fly, the whole colony often settle at night on some 

 sand-point projecting into the sea, or on an elevated beach. 

 During moonlight their cries may often be heard at night, 

 and sometimes, at low water, they search the shores for sand- 

 eels at that season. When the young have been fed for some 

 time by their parents after leaving the breeding-places, they 

 begin to separate from them, and at length live mostly apart. 

 By the middle of September they have all left our northern 

 coasts, and by the end of that month they have disappeared 

 from the southern. Some individuals occasionally remain 

 during winter in the south of England. 



Young. — The young are at first covered with light brown- 

 ish-yellow down, patched with dark broAvn. When fledged, 

 they have the bill reddish-yellow at the base, dusky in the 

 rest of its extent; the feet reddish-brown. The forehead 

 brownish-white, the rest of the head and the nape, with the 

 ear-coverts, black ; the neck all round and all the lower 

 parts Avhite ; the feathers of the back and wings are pale 

 bluish-grey, terminally margined with greyish-brown. 



