36 HISTORY OF THE 



tertials tipped with raw-umber brown, the anterior lesser wing coverts dusky, 

 the crown, occiput and upper part of the nape dusky, and the entire sides 

 washed with plumbeous. Downy young: Above, deep soft-umber brown, with 

 a few coarse irregular marblings of black; forehead, crown, throat and jugu- 

 lum more sooty brown, without markings; side of the head, (including lores] 

 dull whitish; abdomen white centrally, pale sooty grayish exteriorly." 



Stretch of 

 Length. wing. Wing, Tail. Tarsus. Bill. 



Male 10.00 23.70 8.10 3.40 .62 1.10 



Female... 9.80 23.25 8.00 3.30 .62 1.00 



This species in its manner of flight is much like the Least 

 Tern, but more easy and graceful in its motions, often skim- 

 ming for hours over the surface of the water, upon which it 

 rarely alights. 



In the stomachs of those examined, I found chiefly dragon 

 flies, beetles and grasshoppers, with now and then the remains 

 of little fishes. 



I have met with the birds upon both coasts, but their natural 

 home is inland, along the streams and about the marshes and 

 reedy ponds. Nest on low, wet or marshy ground, bordering 

 ponds and sloughs; made of bits of stems of reeds and grasses, 

 and lined with the leaves and finer stems. In some cases the 

 eggs are laid upon the bare ground. Eggs usually three, occa- 

 sionally four, 1.30x.96; greenish drab to olive brown, spotted 

 and blotched with brownish black, often thickest and running 

 together around larger end; in form, rather ovate to pyriform. 



ORDER STEGANOPODES. 



TOTIPALMATE SWIMMERS. 



"Hind toe lengthened and incumbered, and united to the inner toe by a 

 complete web (small only in Fregatida). Bill extremely variable, but usually 

 with a more or less extensible naked gular sac between the mandibular rami. 

 Nostrils obsolete. Habits altricial; young dasypsedic in Tachypetidce, Plialac- 

 rocoracidce, AnhingidcB and Phaethontidce, gymuopsedic in Pelecanidce and Su- 

 Palate saurognathous. Carotids double." 



FAMILY ANHINGIDJE, DARTERS. 



"Bill slender, pointed, compressed, and very Heron-like in shape, the culmen 

 and commissure almost straight, the gonys slightly ascending; terminal half of 

 the tomia serrated, the serrations directed backward and forming a series of 



