GREAT TERN. 509 
GREAT TERN.—STERNA HIRUNDO. — Fie. 239. 
Arct. Zool. p. 524, No. 448. — Le Pierre garin, ou poe Hirondelle de mer, Buff. 
viii. 331, Pl. enl. 987. — Bewick, ii. 181.— Peale’s Museum, No. 3485. 
‘ 
STERNA WILSONI, — Bonararte.* 
Stema hirundo, Bonap. Synop. p. 354, — St. Wilsonii, Bonap. Osserv. Sulla, 
2d edit. Del Regn. Anim. Cuv. p. 135. 
Turs bird-belongs to a tribe very generally dispersed over the shores 
of the ocean. Their generic characters are these: — Bill, straight, 
sharp-pointed, a little compressed, and strong; nostrils, linear ; tongue, 
slender, pointed; legs, short; feet, webbed; hind toe and its nail, 
straight; wings, Jong; tail, generally forked. Turton enumerates 
twenty-five species of this genus, scattered over various quarters of 
the world; six of which, at least, are natives of the United States. 
From their long, pointed wings, they are generally known to seafaring 
people, and others residing near the sea-shore, by the name of Sea 
Swallows ; though some few, from their near resemblance, are con- 
founded with the Gulls. 
The present species, or Great Tern, (Fig. 239,) is common to the 
shores of Europe, Asia, and America. It arrives on the coast of New 
Jersey about the middle or 20th of April, led, no doubt, by the multi- 
tudes of fish which at that season visit our shallow bays and inlets. 
By many it is called the Sheep’s Head Gull, from arriving about the 
same time with the fish of that name. 
About the middle or 20th of May, this bird commences laying. 
The preparation of a nest, which costs most other birds so much time 
and ingenuity, is here altogether dispensed with. The eggs, generally 
three in number, are placed on the surface of the dry drift grass, on 
the beach or salt marsh, and covered by the female only during the 
night, dr in wet, raw, or stormy weather. At all other times, the 
hatching of them is left to the heat of the sun. These eggs measure 
an inch and three quarters in length, by about an inch and two tenths 
in width, and are of a yellowish dun color, sprinkled with dark brown 
and pale Indian ink. Notwithstanding they seem thus negligently 
abandoned during the day, it is very different in reality. One or both 
of the parents are generally fishing within view of the place, and, on 
the near approach of any person, instantly make their appearance over- 
head; uttering a hoarse, jarring kind of cry, and flying about with evi- 
dent symptoms of great anxiety and consternation. The young are 
generally produced at intervals of a day or so from each other, and 
are regularly and abundantly fed for several weeks, before their wings 
are sufficiently grown to enable them to fly. At first the parents alight 
* Mr. Ord, in his reprint, and C. L. Bonaparte, when writing his Synopsis and 
Observations on the Nomenclature of Wilson, considered this bird as identical with 
the St. hirwndo of Europe. Later comparisons by the Prince have induced him to 
consider it distinct, and peculiar to America, and he has dedicated it to Wilson. 
That gentleman mentions, as North American, in addition to the list by Wilson, 
St. cyanea, Lath. 43 arctica, Temm.: St. stolida, Linn. — Ep. 
* 
