564 THE ROSEATE TERN. 



enchanted isle of wondrous beauty. As the barque of the gentle pirates grated 

 on the strand, a thousand Purple Martins rose in a cloud from a dead hack- 

 berry tree and whirled about in wild confusion until better counsels prevailed 

 and they returned to slumber. 



Not so the Terns. Nothing could completely lull their fears: altho, when 

 we made our bivouac in the woods, the mothers did settle to their eggs. The 

 Terns were everywhere. We found them nesting indifferently upon the pol- 

 ished limestone of the western shore, the naked gravels of the south end, the 

 grassy -paddocks of the upland, or within the dim and grassless shade of the 

 interior. The Terns owned the island and their clamor was really unceasing. 

 A few were crying all night long, and the noise at four o'clock in the morning 

 was nothing short of an uproar. We estimated that something like fifteen 

 hundred Terns found harbor upon the island, but we did not attempt a nest- 

 and-egg census. 



Lest some suspicion enter the mind of the reader that we too were bent on 

 plunder, let me hasten to confess that we helped ourselves freely to addled eggs 

 and secured two fresh sets for the museum of Oberlin College. No firearms 

 were discharged during the entire trip. If others will practice similar modera- 

 tion, we bid them Godspeed. 



Arrived again at Isle St. George, on the evening of the 8th, in time for 

 camp, the Terns still followed us, in spirit if not in body. Altho we had put 

 six watery miles between ourselves and the nearest Terns, on several occasions 

 this evening and the following morning, I heard them screaming. I say heard, 

 not vividly recalled alone, for the impression made by their outcries upon the 

 subliminal mind was so intense that it reproduced the full chorus, by means of 

 an auditive hallucination, which lasted several seconds at a time. For an ama- 

 teur psychologist it was an interesting experience, in no wise diminished, ap- 

 parently, by the fact that the normal consciousness became instantly aware of 

 the trick that was being played upon it, and alert to observe the process. 



No. 270. 



ROSEATE TERN. 



A. O. U. No. 72. Sterna dougalli Montag. 



Description. Adult in summer : Top of head and nape deep lustrous black ; 

 mantle pearl-gray, delicately shaded to lighter on cervix, longer scapulars, etc. ; 

 wings much as in preceding species, but lighter extensively white on exposed 

 portions of inner web ; rump and upper coverts and tail pale pearly, the latter 

 deeply forked, the outer feathers narrowly tapering, reaching two or three inches 

 beyond tips of closed wing, unicolored ; four succeeding pairs graduated for 

 about half the distance of entire furcation ; under parts white, beautifully tinted 



