552 THE BLACK TERN. 



habitat, but the "hummocks," and even the submerged 

 tracts of mangroves in Florida. The song is a unique trill 

 on an ascending scale. The nest, set in an upright fork of 

 a bush, or tied to several disconnected shoots, is compactly 

 formed of coarse bark-shreds and weeds externally, bedded 

 and lined with vegetable down and fine grasses'. The 3-5 

 eggs, .62 X 52, ratker large for the bird, are white, pretty 

 heavily marked with light brown and lilac. 



THE BLACK TERN. 



Sitting under a screen, late in August, in some secluded 

 nook in Barnegat Bay, every now and then one may be sur- 

 prised by the dashing flight of a flock of Black Terns 

 (Hydrochelidon nigra). In spring, notwithstanding the gray 

 back, wings and tail, and white crissum, the more conspicu- 

 ous sooty black of the head, neck and under parts, fully 

 justify the common name; but during the late summer and 

 autumn plumage, that name seems quite inappropriate, for 

 then, except the dusky back of the head, and the ring around 

 the eye, the black parts of the spring dress are white. 

 Though reaching the sea-coast in the migration of late 

 summer, this Tern, unlike the rest of its family, is not a 

 bird of the sea-side, but of the flooded marshes about our 

 lakes of the interior. I found it breeding in great numbers 

 in June on St. Clair Flats. Its sooty form, finely set off by 

 its silvery wings and tail — the wings rather broad and the 

 tail but slightly forked for a Tern — was constantly in sight, 

 as it fished along the channels; and its rather musical piping 

 note was in hearing almost night and day. Here and there, 

 among the vegetable growths in the flooded marshes, they 

 nested more or less in community, where, if an intruder 

 approached, their little breasts would be filled with rage, 

 thsir loud notes then reminding one of the screaming of the 

 Robins under like circumstances of excitement. The nest 



