THE BIRDS OP NEW JERSEY. 61 



70 Sterna hirundo Linnaeus. 

 Common Tern. 



PLATE 5. 



• 



Adults. — Length, 13-16. Wing, 9.75-11.75. Above, pearl gray ; top of head, 

 black ; tail slightly forked, white, with outer web of outer feathers gray ; under 

 parts, grayish-white ; bill, red, tipped with black ; feet, light red. 



In winter fore part of head white, under parts whiter, and bill blackish. 



Young in first summer like winter adults, but feathers on the back edged and 

 mottled with brownish, and lesser wing-coverts dusky. 



Nest simply a hollow in the sand, or on trash thrown up on the meadows; 

 eggs, three to four, olive-brownish, or olive-gray blotched with brown, 1.80 x 1.30. 



These beautiful birds, when undisturbed, nested in communities of 

 hundreds or thousands. When one visited one of the colonies they 

 rose in the air and circled about until the intruder had taken his de- 

 parture. Their graceful flight, their immaculate plumage, and their 

 weird chorus of protesting cries, all combined to add a charm to the 

 seashore that nothing can ever replace. And they have been practi- 

 cally wiped out of existence for what? To be stuffed into grotesque 

 shapes and stuck on a woman's hat — a purpose for which they were 

 surely never created. They were not murdered and perched upon the 

 milliner's creations because they look well there, for they are by 

 this time mere caricatures of the graceful inhabitants of the shore, 

 but because fashion demanded them and women were too weak to say 

 no. Now we hear that they do not wear them. No ! There are none 

 to wear. And the Egret, too, has been all but exterminated from our 

 coasts. 



Formerly an abundant summer resident, breeding both on the 

 "trash" thrown up by high tide on the meadows and on the sandy 

 beach above high-water mark. Now reduced to a few small colonies 

 or scattered pairs. Occurs from April to October. In 1881 they bred 

 abundantly on the meadows back of Beach Haven (Morris), but by 

 1893 were so rare that Mr. G. S. Morris and I were astonished to find 

 two pairs nesting July 23d, just above Atlantic City.^ About Stone 

 Harbor they still nest in small numbers, and I was informed of one 

 colony of about 100 pairs that bred successfully in 1908. Several 

 Terns of this species were seen on the upper Delaware September 5th, 



» Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, 1879, p. 227. 



