LEAST TERN. 177 
with pleasure, and are in no haste to depart. Should this scene be en- 
acted while they have young in their company, the latter await in the 
air the rise of their parents, meet them, and receive the food from 
them. When all are satiated, they proceed on their journey, stopping 
at another similar but distant place. 
Although along our Southern and Middle Districts, the Least Tern 
merely scoops a very slight hollow in which to deposit its eggs, doing 
this from the first of April to the first of June, according to the 
latitude of the place, those which I found breeding on the coast of 
Labrador had formed very snug nests, composed of short fragments of 
dry moss, well matted together, and nearly of the size of that of the 
American Robin, Turdus migratorius; while those met with on the islands 
near the Bay of Galveston, were observed to have laid their eggs upon 
the dry drifted weeds which appeared to have been gathered by them 
for the purpose. The nests are generally placed out of reach of the 
tides, but on some occasions I have known the hopes of a whole co- 
lony destroyed by the sudden overflow of their selected places caused by 
a severe gale, and have observed that, on such occasions, their cla- 
mour was as great as if they had been robbed of their eggs by man. 
The number of eggs deposited by this species is more frequently 
three than four. Like those of most other Terns, they differ some- 
what in size and markings, although I never found any so large as 
those described by Wrtson, who states that they measure nearly an 
inch and three quarters in length, which would better agree with the 
eggs of the Common Tern. The average of a basketful was found to 
be one inch and two and a half eighths in length, by seven and a half 
eighths in breadth. They are rather pointed at the smaller end, and 
their ground colour is pale yellowish-white, blotched with irregular 
dark brown spots, intermixed with others of a dull purplish tint. 
I have found this Tern breeding among Shearwaters along the Flo- 
rida coast; and my friend the Reverend Joun Bacuman has observed 
the same circumstance on the “ Bird’s Banks,” on the coasts of South 
Carolina, where it is abundant, as well as on Sullivan Island. 
_ The common note of our Least Tern resembles that of the Barn 
Swallow when disturbed about its nest, being as smartly and rapidly 
repeated at times. When it proves convenient for it to alight on the 
ground or on a sand-beach, after it has secured a prawn or small fish, 
it does so, and there devours its prey piecemeal, but it more usually 
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