Song Birds and Water Fowl 
said that, in several years that he had lived 
there, he had never yet detected a bird on its 
nest. ‘Their labors of incubation seem to be nil, 
and the sun’s rays in mid-summer are said to be 
motherly enough for all practical purposes. The 
wild-fowl vigor is thus manifest already in the 
egg, but probably the birds sit on them in the 
night. The shell is very thin and fragile, as the 
skipper found when one broke in his pocket. 
It is far more difficult to learn the range of 
water fowl than of land birds; but it is evident 
that gulls are northern representatives of a type 
of water bird that finds its southern exponent in 
the smaller and more delicate terns. The gen- 
eral habits and appearance of gulls and terns are 
much alike, and science calls them closely rela- 
ted ; but the former come down to us from the 
north in winter ; the latter come up to us from 
the south in summer. 
Of the thirteen species of terns that we call 
ours by reason of being seen at least occasional- 
ly along the coast, only four summer in our lati- 
tude. They are the arctic, roseate, Wilson (or 
sea swallow), and ‘‘least’’ terns. Their re- 
sorts in our neighborhood are chiefly the islands 
at the northeast end of Long Island, and those 
lying near Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. 
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