LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND TERNS. 235 



the only field mark of consequence is the slightly longer tail of 

 forsteri^ which is not very conspicuous. 



The voice, however, is quite distinctive and usually makes identi- 

 fication easy and certain. The cry of the 3^oung bird in juvenal 

 plumage, as we heard it in the Manitoba marshes, is a shrill, high- 

 pitched squeal, quite different from the notes of other terns or gulls. 

 I noted at the same time the call of the adult as harsh and grating, 

 on a low key and sounding like " tza-a-ap." Elsewhere in my notes 

 I find that I have described the same note as " zreep " or " zrurrrr " — 

 a rasping, nasal, buzzing sound, suggesting the well-known note of 

 the nighthawk. It also utters on rare occasions a soft " wheat, 

 wheat," like the common tern. On the Virginia coast the prevailing 

 notes were the characteristic, harsh, grating cries described above; 

 but I also heard here a shrill, peeping note, " pip, pip, pip, pip, pip," 

 rapidly given. 



Mr. Peabody (1896) condemns Forster's tern as a " mis-avian 

 spirit," saying: 



While sociable among his kind, and, to them, moderately good-tempered (ex- 

 cept in the breeding time), he is radically hostile to all other birds. A veritable 

 Ishmael among the waterfowl, his spirit, both of courage and of mean 

 cowardice, is never so clearly portrayed as when, by mutual encroachment 

 upon favorable waters, many species other tlian those of his feather flock 

 together. 



Evidently the tern has many foes. The Franklin's gull is his arch enemy ; 

 the muskrat and the mink undoubtedly do away with many eggs, while the 

 character of this tern himself inclines me to think that he occasionally plays 

 the cannibal. 



Mr. Rockwell (1911) cites the following incident: 



A few black-crowned night herons were nesting among the terns, and one 

 unfortunate youngster, unable to fly, who deserted his nest at our approach, 

 took refuge on a tern's nest, wliere he was promptly attacked by half a dozen 

 of the birds, and although twice as large as his assailants, was knocked down 

 repeatedly by well-directed blows of the birds' wings, until he finally sought 

 safety in the water. 



Winter. — As Forster's tern is somewhat hardier than others of its 

 genus, the fall migration is more prolonged and it winters farther 

 north. Migrants begin to arrive on the Carolina coasts as early as 

 August and linger until late in the fall, wintering regularly in South 

 Carolina and occasionally farther north. In Florida it is a very 

 common winter resident on inland waters and on the coast. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Breeding range. — Temperate North America, mainly within the 

 United States, at widely scattered localities. East to western Ontario 

 (Port Maitland, near the east end of Lake Erie) and the coast of 



