COMMON TERN. 99 



the different pairs move about, renew their caresses, and scoop out a little 

 cavity in the soil. If you come again in a few days, you will find the place 

 covered with eggs. There they lie, three in each hollow, beautifully spotted 

 and pointed; and as they receive heat enough from the sun, the birds have 

 left them until evening. But not absent are they from the cherished spot, 

 for they have seen you, and now they all fly up screaming. Although 

 unable to drive you away, they seem most anxiously to urge your departure 

 by every entreaty they can devise; just as you would do, were your family 

 endangered by some creature as much stronger than yourself as you are 

 superior to them. Humanity fills your heart, you feel for them as a parent 

 feels, and you willingly abandon the place. The eggs are soon hatched; the 

 young in due time follow their parents, who, not considering their pleasant 

 labour ended when they are able to fly, feed them on wing in the manner of 

 Swallows, until they are quite capable of procuring their subsistence them- 

 selves. So soon as this is the case, the young birds fly off in bands, to seek 

 on distant shores, and in sunny climes, the plentiful food which the ocean 

 yields. 



The nest of the Common Tern is, as I have said, a mere hollow made in 

 the loose sand of some island or mainland beach, scantily tufted with wiry 

 grass, or strewed with sea-weeds. Their eggs never exceed three in number; 

 their average length is 1 inch 5|- eighths, their breadth li inches. They 

 vary greatly in their markings, as is the case with those of all the smaller 

 species of this family; but their ground colour is generally pale yellowish- 

 green, blotched and spotted with brownish-black and purplish-grey or 

 neutral tint. 



The young, which are fed with small fishes, shrimps, and insects, separate 

 from the old birds when fully fledged, and do not again associate with them 

 until the following spring, when both are found breeding in the same places. 

 It seems quite curious to see these young birds in winter, during boisterous 

 Aveather, throwing themselves into the remotest parts of estuaries, and even 

 visiting salt-water ponds at some distance from the sea, as I have often seen 

 them do at Charleston, in South Carolina, when accompanied by my friend 

 the Rev. Dr. Bachman. Their plumage is then so very different from that 

 of the old birds, that one might readily believe them to be of another spe- 

 cies, did he not observe that their mode of flying and their notes are the 

 same. Not less strange is it, that on such occasions none of the old birds 

 are to be seen in the place, they having remained, braving the fury of the 

 tempest, on the outer harbours. In the beginning of winter, young birds 

 also sometimes ascend the Mississippi as far as Natchez; and in the same 

 manner betake themselves to all the large lakes bordering the.. Gulf of 

 Mexico. There, as well as elsewhere, you see them plunge into the water, 



