GULLS AND TERNS 31 



a strip of sandy beach separating the surf from the tide marsh. 

 Colonel Goss, speaking of the terns of Kansas, says: " These little 

 beauties, the smallest of the family, flit through the air like swal- 

 lows, darting here or there for an insect, or suddenly stopping to 

 hover, like hawks or kingfishers, over a school of minnows or 

 shrimp, ready to drop on the first that comes to the surface." 



GENUS HYDROCHELIDON. 



77. Hydrochelidon nigra surinamensis (GmeL). AMERICAN 

 BLACK TERN. 



Web of feet reaching- only to middle of toes. Adults in breeding plum- 

 age : head, neck, and breast black; 

 wings and tail slaty gray ; under tail 

 coverts white ; bill -and feet black. 

 Winter plumage : head, neck, and 

 under parts white, orbital ring- and 



ear coverts dusky ; upper parts blue gray. In late summer the white and 

 black feathers are mixed on the breast. Young : similar to winter adults, 

 but with edges of scapulars brown, and crown and back of head dusky. 

 Length: 9.00-10.25, wing 8.25, bill 1.10, tail 3.75, forked for .90. 



Distribution. Temperate part of North America, and south to Brazil 

 and Chili. 



Nest. Usually on dead floating rushes in shallow water, sometimes on 

 the bare ground, or on an old muskrat house or a water-soaked log ; made of 

 reeds, wild rice, and grasses, and lined with leaves and fine stems. Eggs: 

 2 to 4, greenish drab to olive brown, spotted with blackish brown. 



The first sight of Hydrochelidon in the breeding season is an amaz- 

 ing one, for as you see the tern-like form approaching across a lake 

 your imagination clothes it in white, but when it reaches you lo ! 

 its fore parts are jet black. Another surprise comes, when, associat- 

 ing its kin with wide lakes and ocean shores, you find one beating 

 over a patch of marsh between the angles of a meadow brook, or 

 circling over a pool in a barnyard ! But, in spite of the shocks 

 given your preconceived ideas, this swallow-like tern excites your 

 keenest interest, and whether on the prairies of Texas or in the valleys 

 of the high Sierra, you soon find yourself eagerly watching for the 

 strange bird, and every landscape graced by its form goes down to 

 memory with a charm all its own. 



