The Black Tern {Hydrochelidon nigra surinamensis) 

 By Gerard Alan Abbott 



Length: 9^^ inches. 



Range : Temperate and tropical America, from Alaska to Brazil. 



Food : ]\Iostly insects, dragonfly nymphs, grasshoppers, beetles, small fishes. 



In some of the prairie states the Black Tern seems to be a sort of connecting 

 link between the birds of land and water. 



The Black Tern, the only dark plumaged member of the gull or tern family 

 inhabiting the interior portions of North America, breeds from the Gulf of 

 Mexico to upper Canada, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, nesting 

 even within corporate limits of Chicago. 



While gregarious, they are found in smaller groups than most of our long- 

 winged swimmers. Largely insectivorous, they capture their prey in the air. 

 They also plunge into the water after small minnows and other marine life. 

 Although the feet are webbed, these birds seldom swim except perhaps when 

 mig-ratinsf across largfe bodies of water. Their call note is a harsh shriek uttered 

 incessantly if one intrudes upon their nesting sites, usually in marshy places, 

 preferably open country, free from timber. l"he nests are constructed of decayed 

 vegetation, dead Hags and rushes, often a mere depression on a partially sub- 

 merged muskrat house containing the two or three dark yellowish eggs, heavily 

 and thickly blotched with shades of lilac and very dark brown. These birds 

 have a habit of rolling their eggs in the wet earth and vegetation, thereby render- 

 ing them less conspicuous. I have known the birds to arrange a little nest on 

 the top of an old grebe's nest. Often the water is several feet deep where the 

 nests are made, but the growing reeds and rushes allow the v/ater to remain more 

 or less stagnant so the eggs are seldom disturbed by waves. 



Sparrows and Sparrows 



By Joseph Grinnell 



Xo bird, unless it be the crow, is so nicknamed as the sparrow. None is 

 so evil spoken of, none so loved. Accepted enemy of the farmer, it is the 

 farmer's dearest friend. 



It is a good, large family, that of the sparrows, ninety or more varieties 

 occurring in the Ignited States, .\lways, of whatever tint or markings, it is 

 recognized by its stout, stalky shape, short legs, and strong feet; but more 

 surely by its bulging, cone-like bill, pointed toward the end. This beak is the 

 bird's best characteristic, just as a certain nose is the leading feature of some 

 human families. And there is character in a sparrow's nose. It is used for 

 original research and investigation, on account of which the sparrow, of all the 



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