248 



BIRDS OF ILLINOIS. 



upper parts, including lower part of the nape, upper tail-coverts, r.nfl tail pale pearl-gray, 

 deepest on the doisal region and wings. Two to three outer primaries dusky slate, the 

 inner webs broadly o.lged with white; remaining quills pale pearl-gray, like the coverts, 

 the edge of Ihe inner webs white. Entire lower webs pure white. Bill bright yellow, nsu- 

 ally (but not always?) tipped with black; iris dark brown; legs and feet bright orange-yellow. 

 A dull, in winter: Similar, but lores, fore Head, and crown grayish white (purer white ante- 

 riorly); an occipital crescent and a stripe forward from this to and surrounding the eye 

 blackish. Bill dusky; legs and feet dull yellowish. Young, fir at nlumage: Somewhat 

 similar to the winter plumage, but humeral region marked by a wide space of dusky slate, 

 the scapulars and intersca)iulars with su'-marginal V- or U-shaped marks of dusky, the 

 crown streaked and the occiput mottled with dusky, and the primaries darker than in the 

 adult. Bill dusky, brownish toward the base; feet brownish. Downy young: Above, 

 grayish white, finely mottled with dusky grayish, the headdistinctly marked with irregular 

 dots of dusky black; lower r^arts entirely immaculate white. Bill dull yellow, tipped with 

 dusky; legs and feet clear pale yellow. 



Totallength, about 9.00-9.40 inches; extent,T8.'75-20.00; wing, 6.60; tail, 3.50, its fork, 1.75 ; 

 culmen, 1.20; depth of bill at base, .28; tarsus, .60; middle toe, with claw, .72. 



This beautiful little tern occurs in summer nearly throufjliout 

 the Mississippi Valley, and, doubtless, breeds somewhere within 

 the limits of Illinois, although there is not, to my knowledge, 

 any record of its doing so. It is much more abundant along 

 the Atlantic coast, where it formerly bred regularly as far north 

 as Massachusetts, but on account of the increasing summer 

 population of the localities most frequented by it (the islands 

 just off the coast), it, like other terns, is said to be growing 

 every year less numerous, and has even quite abandoned many 

 of its former breeding grounds. 



Its habits are quite similar to those of other species of the 

 same genus. It is equally bold and pugnacious when its eggs 

 or young are menaced, when it keeps up a protesting cry of 

 ulU, ulk', uik\ sounding ver^' much Hke the querulous grunt 

 of a young pig whose mother has left it too far in the rear. 



Its eggs are deposited on the bare sand, gravel, or "shingle" 

 beyond reach of the highest tides, and in color assimilate so 

 closely to their surroundings as to be with great difficulty 

 detected. 



Genus HYDEOCHELIDON Boie. 



Hydroc elidon BoiK, Isis, 1822. .563. Type, Stei-na nigra LiNN. 



Gkn. Chak. Similar to the smaller species of Sterna, but tail only very slightly forked 

 or emarginate, the rectrice.s not attenuated at ends, and the webs of the toes filling less 

 than half the intei-digital spaci^s. Adults gray or blackish beneath, as dark as. or darker 

 than, the color of the upper surface. 



