LARIDA. 977 
station. The spring visitors are mature birds, and all 
that I have seen are in full summer plumage: they 
generally make their appearance about the middle of 
April, occasionally in considerable numbers, as I 
have heard of as many as thirty being seen together 
in one flock. The autumnal visitors arrive about 
the end of August, in flocks consisting of both old 
and young birds: many of the old birds are then 
changing from summer to winter plumage, the fore 
part of the head and neck being much mottled 
with white, but some of them are still in perfect 
summer plumage. The flock out of which I pro- 
cured my specimens of young birds might have 
numbered from thirty to forty: they were rather 
dispersed about, hovering over the small pools left 
by the tide, in search of shrimps or small fish: some 
of them occasionally settled on the pool and swam 
about for a short time: they appeared very light on 
the water and to swim much like Gulls; they did 
not appear very wild, but easily allowed us to ap- 
proach within shot, and had we been so disposed we 
might have killed a great many, probably the greater 
part of the flock, as they did not show much fear of 
our breech-loaders, but came and hovered over their 
dead companions, like Gulls: however, we contented 
ourselves with three each; one of these was an adult 
bird changing to winter plumage—all the rest were 
young birds of the year. 
The Black Tern appears to be easily kept in 
3D 
