WINGED FISHERFOLK 271 



performance to appear commonplace. What bird is 

 there more graceful than the swallow of the sea? 

 There is something truly fascinating about it as it sails 

 through the air. The easy motion of its long wings 

 puts me in mind of a perfectly trained racing eight 

 paddling up to the starting-post before a race. 



Terns resemble swallows in many respects. The 

 former are, of course, larger and of lighter hue. There 

 is a marked difference, too, in the mode of flight. If a 

 tern reminds one of a rowing eight paddling along, the 

 swallow resembles the eight racing at high pressure. 



No one can fail to recognize a tern. If you see a 

 slenderly-built bird of whitish tinge, with long swallow- 

 like wings and a forked tail, a bird which sails along 

 easily over water, sometimes diving for a fish, more 

 frequently picking something off the surface of the 

 water, you may set that bird down as a tern. 



Three species are common about Madras. The most 

 abundant is the gull-bird tern {Sterna angelica). This 

 is the least beautiful of the terns, but albeit a handsome 

 bird. It may be seen any day looking for its quarry 

 over the Cooum. Its under parts are pure white, its 

 beak and legs are black, and it has also some black, 

 more in summer than in winter, about the head. Its 

 tail is not very deeply forked. 



A far more striking bird is the Caspian tern {Hydro- 

 progne caspid). It is the largest of the terns, being 

 twenty inches in length. By its size you may know it, 

 also by its black head and coral-red bill. 



The third of the common Madras terns is the black- 

 bellied tern {Sterna melanogaster). This is a bird one 



