STERNA. 



more or less forked. Indeed, were it not that they 

 are water-birds and the swallows are land ones, they 

 resemble these in very many particulars. Their 

 voices even have some resemblance to those of the 

 swallows, by sharp hissing screeches. 



The style in which the terns twitch down to seize 

 the small fishes and fry that are near the surface of 

 the water is often very splendid ; and one knows not 

 whether most to admire, their rapidity of flight or 

 their facility of descent, just to tip the surface of the 

 water, and instantly again to ascend and be on the 

 wing. How they can see with such unerring certainty, 

 and change their motion so instantaneously from the 

 forward rush of the wing to an absolutely perpendi- 

 cular descent, as if it were a stone or piece of lead 

 falling, is a matter which we cannot very well explain 

 or even understand ; but that they do it is certain, 

 and as vision is the only sense that they can have to 

 guide them, their powers in this respect must be 

 wonderful. Taking them in the average of their 

 species, they are not so much sea-birds as they are 

 birds of the marshes near the sea, and the lower parts 

 of the valleys of the great rivers that are occasionally 

 flooded. Some of them are found upon the inland 

 waters, or at all events upon the land-locked seas, and 

 the rivers that flow into these. In the spring they 

 come to the shores in considerable bands ; but they 

 generally disperse themselves in single pairs in the 

 breeding season. In winter they are more upon the 

 flooded grounds. 



The birds are so rapid in their motions, and the 

 habits of some of them are so little known, that it is 

 not possible to give a general account of their man- 

 ners that is sufficiently clear. In respect of their 

 habits they might perhaps admit of division into four 

 sections, though there are no structural differences 

 sufficiently marked for giving these much interest in 

 a systematic arrangement. The first of these divisions 

 might include the species which, especially in the 

 breeding season, find their food chiefly by fishing in 

 the inland waters, and thus keep near the margins. 

 A second division are more discursive over the sur- 

 face of those waters, and their food is less known. 

 A third division breed in the marshes, and live upon 

 insects, spiders, and other little creatures which they 

 capture when on the wing, as well as upon fish. 

 The fourth division are more of sea birds, and deposit 

 their eggs on the sands and flats, and especially on 

 the small islets near the shores and in the estuaries of 

 the rivers. Those of the last division are the charac- 

 teristic ones of the BrilL-h islands ; for our inland 

 waters are not ample enough, or the lower parts of 

 our rivers sufficiently flooded, to afford scope for the 

 others. The countries which lie toward the Black 

 Sea and the Caspian, and the marshy banks of the 

 rivers that fall into those seas, especially the Danube, 

 are the great haunts of the terns on the eastern con- 

 tinent ; but there are also many on the American 

 marshes. The fact is, that their wings are so ready 

 and so powerful, that a flight of a few hundred miles 

 is with them a matter of but small effort. The haunts 

 of the marsh ones are both difficult and disagreeable 

 to explore, so that we are not so well acquainted with 

 their habits as it would be desirable to be with those 

 of birds of so much energy of character. But our 

 notice of them must be brief, and we must in a great 

 measure confine it to those which are generally or 

 occasionally found in the British islands, or upon 

 their shore?, 



THE GULL-BILIED TERN (S. Anglica). The epithet 

 Anglica, or English, is very inappropriately applied 

 to this one, inasmuch as it is really not an English 

 bird, and occurs in our part of the world only as a 

 very rare straggler. The proper habitat is the east 

 of Europe, especially the marshes of Hungary, and 

 the countries below that on the Danube ; but it ranges 

 considerably both to the eastward and the westward ; 

 and seasonally it is found by the marshy or flooded 

 places near the rivers that fall into the Caspian and 

 the lake of Aral. This tern of the central marshes 

 of the eastern continent is a much more heavy bird, 

 and slower in its motions, than the terns with which 

 we are more familiar on our own shores ; and in its 

 general make, as well as in the form of its bill, it has 

 no slight resemblance to those gulls which breed in 

 the marshes. Indeed there is one of the gulls which 

 inhabits nearly the same locality ; and probably the 

 two perform the office of scavengers together. It is 

 not a little curious that, though this species is by no 

 means rare in the east of Europe, the first notice of 

 it by naturalists should have been by the late Colonel 

 Montagu, from a specimen found in England ; and 

 thus its introduction to natural history is English, 

 though the bird itself is really a foreigner. 



This tern is a bird of considerable size, and well 

 winged, though, as we have said, rather a heavy flyer. 

 The extent of the wings from tip to tip is about thirty- 

 four inches, or half a foot more than double the length 

 of the body. The bill is very strong and of a dark 

 colour, and has a projecting angle at the middle ol 

 the lower mandible the same as in the gulls, and the 

 tip is also formed in a similar manner. From the 

 similarity in form there is every reason to infer a 

 similarity of office, and that the tern is alternately a 

 fisher and a scavenger as circumstances may require, 

 In the summer plumage the head and neck are black, 

 and the upper parts greyish white, with the shafts ol 

 the quills and tail-feathers pure white. A streak 

 from the gape to the eye, and all the under part ol 

 the body, are also white. In winter the head and 

 neck become nearly white ; but the black is restored 

 in the spring moult. The tail is forked, and the 

 closed wings extend at least two inches beyond the 

 tip of it. The nest is formed in a tuft or bush by 

 the side of the marsh from which the bird procures 

 its food, or on a hummock within the marsh, if there 

 happens to be one adapted for the purpose. Tht 

 nest is constructed wholly of dry vegetable fibres 

 and the eggs are four in number, of a greenish-olive 

 colour, and marked with brown spots. 



THE CASPIAN TERN (S. Cftspia) is another specie! 

 of the central marshes of the eastern continent, and 

 as its name implies, a more easterly inhabitant than 

 the other marsh tern. On the Caspian it is verj 

 abundant ; and, though one of the large and heavj 

 terns, it sometimes, although not very frequently 

 straggles into England, the place where it is mosl 

 likely to visit being the east coast of Norfolk. 



In its summer plumage the upper parts of this spe- 

 cies, with the exception of the head and neck, are 

 ash colour, and the under parts white. The head 

 and neck are deep black, the feathers on the laltei 

 being long and silky. In winter it is supposed thai 

 the black fades as it does in the preceding species 

 but the habits and the breeding place of this one a 

 little known. It is in the winter plumage that a few 

 specimens of this bird have straggled into England 

 In that state the front and part of the head are white 



