TERNS 



in hunting for which the laughing-gull will follow the ploughman like a rook. 

 The call is a sort of cackle, having a distant resemblance to a laugh, whence 

 the bird's popular name; its other trivial name, that of black-headed gull, is 

 somewhat misleading, as the head is brown, not black, and there is another gull 

 (L. melanocephalus) which really has a black head. In winter the head is 

 white, so that the name is then still more unsuitable. The plumage generally is 

 pearly grey above and rosy white below ; and the species may be identified by 

 the thirty wing-feathers, of which the three outer primaries are white and black 

 and the remainder grey, tipped and edged with black. The eyes are hazel, and 

 the beak and feet red. 



The terns, or sea-swallows, are of smaller and more graceful 

 shape than the gulls, and easily recognisable by their slender beaks 

 and forked tails. They run with great swiftness, but are soon fatigued, and are 



Common Tern. 





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CUMMON TERN. 



not so often seen afloat as the gulls, from which they differ by pointing the 

 beaks downwards when swimming. They capture their prey by swooping on it 

 as they fly, and occasionally disappearing for a moment under the surface in its 

 pursuit. The common tern {Sterna fiuviatilis) is more frequent on rivers and 

 inland waters than on the sea, and breeds in all the temperate countries of Europe, 

 Asia, and North America. In winter it migrates to South Africa. Ceylon, and 

 Brazil, arriving on its breeding-grounds in the second half of April, and leaving 

 again towards the end of July. When nesting on the seashore, it lays its eggs 

 mi dry seaweed, or in a hollow in the shingle or the sand, but inland chooses 

 swampy ground and makes a nest of dry grass. The eggs, generally three in 

 number, are olive, blotched with purplish brown and grey, the dark markings 

 being often hardly noticeable. The young are hatched in sixteen and a half 

 days, and are so like the shingle in colour that they are as inconspicuous among 

 it as the eggs. The old birds feed them for a short time from their beaks, but 



