COMMON TERN. 555 



the first week of May, 1875, I found them quite numerous at Chatham, Mass. They fre- 

 quented the sand-bars near the shore, and kept apart from the Herring and Black- 

 hacked Gulls, the only other species of Laridce present at the time. The Short-tailed 

 Tern (Sydrodhelidon nigra) can likewise no longer be regarded as a rare or accidental 

 visitor. Their numbers vary considerably in different years, but they are always to be 

 found during the fall migration. At Nantucket they were fairly numerous in August and 

 September of 1878. I known of but one instance of the oaptnre of this Tern in spring. 



" Four species only out of the number accredited to New England are known to breed 

 along its coast. They may be given in the order of their comparative abundance as fol- 

 lows : The Wilson's or Common Tern (S. fluviatilis) ; the Roseate Tern (S. dougalU) ; the 

 Arctic Tern (S. maorura) (the choice of precedence between the last two species wiU 

 vary as different localities are considered) ; and the Least Tern (S. aniillarum). Of these 

 the Roseate and Least Terns are for the most part confined to the waters of Cape Cod, 

 while the Arctic and Common Terns breed along the entire coast, and range northwards 

 to unknown latitudes. Formerly a small colony of Least Terns nested annually upon 

 the Ipswich sand-hills, but they have been entirely driven away by persecution. This 

 point was probably about the extreme limit of their northern range upon the Atlantic 

 coast. I have also upon one occasion found the Roseate Tern as far north as Casco Bay, 

 Maine, where a small flock was observed upon the Green Island. They certainly were 

 not nesting there, though the date, July 20, renders it not impossible that they had 

 eggs or young on some of the neighboring islands. 



" Spring comes over the sea laterthan upon the land, and fewer tokens are given of its 

 presence. There is no freshening grass; no budding foliage, nor springing up of green 

 thlDgs in sheltered places. Summer may be close at hand, but as yet the sea gives no 

 sign. When the wind is from the north, the waves in the bay have that steely glint 

 that they have borne all winter. The sand drifts drearily over the wind-swept beach- 

 ridges, and the marshes are bleak and brown, while in the interior Robins may be 

 hopping about upon green lawns, and violets blooming in every woodland nook. The 

 Ducks and Geese, it is true, are marshalling their cohorts and stretching out in long 

 lines northward, but the breath of ocean is still chill and cold. Indeed, the season is 

 commonly far advanced, and the apple orchards in bloom inland, ere the winter Gulls 

 are gone to their distant breeding-grounds. Scarcely has the rear guard of their legions 

 departed, when the Terns begin to appear. And what a fitness is there in the chang- 

 ing season I The larger Gulls, that enliven our shores through the colder months, seem 

 born to breast the fiercest gusts of winter and to wrest a living from icy seas. Bold, 

 hardy, vigorous, they delight in the cold, and their every motion bespeaks conscious 

 power and strength. The Terns, on the other hand, are characterized by a delicate per- 

 fection of outline and a swift grace of movement, that seems ill-adapted to stern, pitiless 

 surroundings, They are like swift yachts that winter in southern seas, and come back 

 to us on the first warm breezes of summer. Yet the significance is perhaps only 

 local, after all, for both Gulls and Terns herald the opening summer to the inhabitant of 

 Labrador and Greenland. 



"The Least Terns, although the smallest and seemingly the most delicate of their 

 tribe, arrive first. By the middle of May they appear in certain favored spots, — for they 

 are not anywhere very numerous, — and small colonies of from ten to fifty pairs are 

 soon formed at various points along the shores of Cape Cod and upon some of the more 

 sandy islands in the Vineyard Sound. 



" A few days after the advent of the ' Little Strikers,' aa the Least Terns are called 

 by the 'longshoremen of Virginia, the Wilson's and Roseate Terns begin to appear. 



