SHORT-TAILED TERN. 159 



once made their appearance, flying 1 over those watery 

 spaces, picking up grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, and 

 other insects, that were floating on the surface. Some 

 hundreds of them might he seen at the same time, and 

 all seemingly of one sort. They were busy, silent, and 

 unsuspicious, darting down after their prey without 

 hesitation, though perpetually harassed by gunners 

 whom the novelty of their appearance had drawn to 

 the place. Several flocks of the yellow shanks snipe, 

 and a few purres, appeared also in the meadows at the 

 same time, driven thither doubtless by the violence of 

 the storm. 



I examined upwards of thirty individuals of this 

 species by dissection, and found both sexes alike in 

 colour. Their stomachs contained grasshoppers, crickets, 

 spiders, &c. but no fish. The people on the sea coast 

 have since informed me that this bird comes to them 

 only in the fall, or towards the end of summ\;r, and is 

 more frequently seen about the mill-ponds and fresh 

 water marshes than in the bays ; and add, that it feeds 

 on grasshoppers and other insects which it finds on the 

 meadows and marshes, picking them from the grass, as 

 well as from the surface of the water. They have 

 never known it to associate with the lesser tern, and 

 consider it altogether a different bird. This opinion 

 seems confirmed by the above circumstances, and by 

 the fact of its greater extent of wing, being full three 

 inches wider than the lesser tern, and also making its 

 appearance after the others have gone off. 



The short-tailed tern measures eight inches and a 

 half from the point of the bill to the tip of the tail, and 

 twenty-three inches in extent ; the bill is an inch and 

 a quarter in length, sharp pointed, and"of a deep black 

 colour ; a patch of black covers the crown, auriculars, 

 spot before the eye, and hindhead ; the forehead, eye- 

 lids, sides of the neck, passing quite round below the 

 hindhead, and whole lower parts, are pure white ; the 

 back is dark ash, each feather broadly tipt with brown ; 

 the wings, a dark lead colour, extending an inch and a 

 half beyond the tail, which is also of the same tint, and 



