THE BLACK TERN 27 



ways the terns interest me more than any other water 

 fowl because their provision for swimming seems almost 

 unnecessary. In fact, I have never been quite able to 

 understand why they are water fowl at all. They re- 

 semble the gulls in shape and general appearance, but 

 are smaller, some varieties being scarcely as large as a 

 pigeon. All of them have rather long sharp bills, better 

 adapted for feeding on insects than for eating fish or col- 

 lecting tender roots and stems under the water. 



No bird is more gracefully beautiful than a tern. Every 

 curve of its body seems to be especially shaped to give 

 grace and speed in flight, and its wings are strong and 

 so long that they reach well beyond the end of the 

 body. It is no wonder these birds delight in nothing 

 so much as flying. No matter what the weather, they 

 seem always to be in the air, the mother bird scarcely 

 sparing the time necessary to brood her eggs. 



When I was a boy we had very few terns about home. 

 In fact, in Southeastern Iowa it is only occasionally that 

 terns of any kind are seen and those are mostly migrating. 

 However, I used to make occasional trips further north into 

 the northwestern part of the State where I found those 

 birds rather common, especially the black terns whose 

 story I mean now to tell, because undoubtedly it is the 

 most widely distributed of our American terns. 



It was not till I went West, however, that I became 

 really well acquainted with even the Mack tern. I shall 

 never forget my first trip through .orthwestern Ne- 

 braska and Eastern Colorado not the first time I ever 

 rode through on a train, but the first when I had oppor- 

 tunity to drive over some of this country and become 

 acquainted with its birds and flowers. I happened to 



