290 BULLETIN 113, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



British Honduras (Saddle Cay). Other forms are found in the 

 Eastern Hemisphere and in the Pacific Ocean. 



Winter records. — Practically the same as the breeding range. 



G usual records. — One record each for South Carolina (Frogmore, 

 August 25, 1885), Georgia (coast, September, 1912), and Florida 

 (Audubon's specimen, probably taken in Florida Keys). 



Egg dates. — Bahama Islands : Thirty -three records, April 12 to 

 June 26 ; seventeen records, May 16 to June 8. 



CH LID ONI AS NIGRA SURINAMENSIS (Gmelin). 

 BLACK TERN. 



HABITS. 



A prairie slough, teeming with bird life is one, of the mpst fasci- 

 nating spots for an ornithologist, for nowhere else can he come in 

 close touch with such a variety of species of interesting birds, with 

 such a multitude of individuals crowded into a narrow space and 

 under such favorable, conditions for observation. I have never en- 

 joyed anything more keenly than the long drives we used to take 

 over the virgin prairies of North Dakota, drawn by a lively pair of 

 unshod bronchos, unconfined by fences or roads, with. nothing to 

 guide us but the narrow wagon ruts which marked the section lines 

 and served as the only highways. In those days the, prairies were 

 like a sea of grass, as boundless as the ocean and nearly as level, 

 where only the distant horizon marked the limit of our view. The 

 prairie birds were interesting but widely scattered over a vast area. 

 In the timber belts along the streams the small land birds were 

 swarming in the only available treps; but the real bird life of the 

 region was to be seen in the thickly populated slough. We seemed 

 to be driving on and on into limitless space until suddenly we came 

 to a depression in the prairie marked by a steep embankment, and 

 there,, 10 feet below the level of the prairie, lay a great slough spread 

 out before us. Various ducks 1 — mallards, pintails, shovellers,' and 

 blue- winged teal — began rising from the surface as we appeared, and 

 way out in the open water in the center of the slough we could see 

 redheads, canvasbacks, and ruddy ducks swimming about in scattered 

 flocks. An occasional pied-billed or horned grebe and scores of 

 coots were scurrying in and out among the reeds, clucking and scold- 

 ing or pattering away over the water. King-billed and Franklin's 

 gulls and a few Forster's terns were floating overhead. The loud 

 cries of marbled godwits, western willets, and killdeers betokened 

 their anxiety as they flew about us. Dainty little Wilson's pha- 

 laropes were flitting about the edges of the marsh, and from the 

 recesses of the reeds came the cackling notes { of soras and Virginia 

 rails. Blackbirds, redwings, and yellowheads fairly swarmed in the 



