WINGED FISHERFOLK 271 
performance to appear commonplace. What bird is 
there more graceful than the swallow of the sea? 
There is something truly fascinating about it as it sails 
through the air. The easy motion of its long wings 
puts me in mind of a perfectly trained racing eight 
paddling up to the starting-post before a race, 
Terns resemble swallows in many respects. The 
former are, of course, larger and of lighter hue. There 
is a marked difference, too, in the mode of flight. If a 
tern reminds one of a rowing eight paddling along, the 
swallow resembles the eight racing at high pressure. 
No one can fail to recognize a tern. If you see a 
slenderly-built bird of whitish tinge, with long swallow- 
like wings and a forked tail, a bird which sails along 
easily over water, sometimes diving for a fish, more 
frequently picking something off the surface of the 
water, you may set that bird down as a tern. 
Three species are common about Madras. The most 
abundant is the gull-bird tern (Sterna angelica), This 
is the least beautiful of the terns, but albeit a handsome 
bird. It may be seen any day looking for its quarry 
over the Cooum. Its under parts are pure white, its 
beak and legs are black, and it has also some black, 
more in summer than in winter, about the head. Its 
tail is not very deeply forked. 
A far more striking bird is the Caspian tern (Hydro- 
progne caspia). It is the largest of the terns, being 
twenty inches in length. By its size you may know it, 
also by its black head and coral-red bill. 
The third of the common Madras terns is the black- 
bellied tern (Sterna melanogaster). This is a bird one 
