
888 á SEA-SIDE HOMES: 
two beautiful birds that come and pass the summer months 
together; a peaceful home, secure, it would seem, from 
danger of whatever sort; a house that falls not when the 
rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, 
though it is built upon the sand. Alas! that even were it 
founded upou a rock, the gates of ornithology should pre- 
vail against it. 
It is late in May —the last week of a month that is not, 
in this warm climate, “a pious fraud of the almanac,” as it is 
in New England—and the birds are busy now. Six weeks 
ago they came from their winter retreat in the far South, to 
this well-remembered spot. The Least Terns came dashing 
along high in the air overhead, their pearly white forms 
wavering between the blue water and the bluer sky, ruling 
both and uncertain which to choose ; and saw, with cries of 
exultation, the end of their long journey. As swiftly, yet 
more secretly, the Wilson's Plovers flitted along the shore, 
half concealed by colors that repeat the hue of the sand, 
from one headland to another, across gulf and river's mouth 
in succession, till they too greet kai homes with joyous 
notes. Separated for a long interval, or at most little heed- 
ing each other, the Terns and the Plovers are to come to- 
gether again, and rear their young under the shadow of each 
other's wing. While they are flashing through the clear air, 
or skimming lightly over the mirrored beach, and occupied, 
after mutual recognition, each in their own way with 
preliminaries of the great event of their lives, let us see 
what manner of birds they are. Then, when we come to 
look in upon their homes we shall not be visiting strangers- 
The Least Tern is, as its name implies, the smallest bird 
of its kind in our country ; but it has several near relatives 
in other parts of the world; cousins so nearly alike that 
they have often been mistaken for each other. They form 2 
. Tace, or “subgenus,” as the naturalists call it, that is dis- 
tinguished from other Terns by diminutive size and dainty 
: form even a. a class of birds all of which have ex- 





