374 



GREA T TERN. 



person, instantly make their appearance overhead, uttering 

 a hoarse jarring kind of cry, and flying about with evident 

 symptoms of great anxiety and consternation. The young are 

 generally produced at intervals of a day or so from each other, 

 and are regularly and abundantly fed for several weeks before 

 their wings are sufficiently grown to enable them to fly. At 

 first the parents alight with the fish which they have brought 

 in their mouth or in their bill, and tearing it in pieces, distri- 

 bute it in such portions as their young are able to swallow. 

 Afterwards they frequently feed them without alighting, as 

 they skim over the spot ; and, as the young become nearly 

 ready to fly, they drop the fish among them, where the strong- 

 est and most active have the best chance to gobble it up. In 

 the meantime, the young themselves frequently search about 

 the marshes, generally not far apart, for insects of various 

 kinds ; but so well acquainted are they with the peculiar 

 language of their parents that warn them of the approach of 

 an enemy, that, on hearing their cries, they instantly squat, 

 and remain motionless until the danger be over. 



The flight of the great tern, and, indeed, of the whole tribe, 

 is not in the sweeping shooting manner of the land swallows, 

 notwithstanding their name ; the motions of their long wings 

 are slower, and more in the manner of the gull. 



They have, however, great powers of wing and strength in 

 the muscles of the neck, which enable them to make such 

 sudden and violent plunges, and that from a considerable 

 height too, headlong on their prey, which they never seize 

 but with their bills. In the evening, I have remarked, as 

 they retired from the upper parts of the bays, rivers, and 

 inlets to the beach for repose, about breeding time, that each 

 generally carried a small fish in his bill. 



As soon as the young are able to fly, they lead them to the 

 sandy shoals and ripples where fish are abundant ; and while 

 they occasionally feed them, teach them by their example to 

 provide for themselves. They sometimes penetrate a great 

 way inland, along the courses of rivers ; and are occasionally 



