84 



SHORT-TAILED TERN 



people on the sea coast have since informed me that this bird 

 comes to them only in the Fall, or towards the end of summer; 

 and is more frequently seen about the mill-ponds and fresh water 

 marshes than in the bays ; and add, that it feeds on grasshoppers 

 and other insects which it finds on the meadows and marshes, 

 picking them from the grass, as well as from the surface of the 

 water. They have never known it to associate with the Lesser 

 Tern, and consider it altogether a different bird. This opinion 

 seems confirmed by the above circumstances, and by the fact of its 

 greater extent of wing, being full three inches wider than the Les- 

 ser Tern; and also making its appearance after the others have 

 gone off. 



The Short-tailed Tern measures eight inches and a half from 

 the point of the bill to the tip of the tail, and twenty-three inches 

 in extent; the bill is an inch and a quarter in length, sharp point- 

 ed, and of a deep black color ; a patch of black covers the crown, 

 auriculars, spot before the eye and hind head; the forehead, eye- 

 lids, sides of the neck, passing quite round below the hind head, 

 and whole lower parts are pure white; the back is dark ash, each 

 feather broadly tipt with brown; the wings a dark lead color, ex- 

 tending an inch and a half beyond the tail, which is also of the 

 same tint, and slightly forked; shoulders of the wing brownish 

 ash ; legs and webbed feet tawny. It had a sharp shrill cry when 

 wounded and taken. 



This is probably the Broivn Tern mentioned by Willoughby, 

 of which so many imperfect accounts have already been given. 

 The figure in the plate, like those which accompany it, is reduced 

 to one half the size of life. 



