16 Brewster on Terns of the New England Coast. 
from icy seas. Bold, hardy, vigorous, they delight in the cold, and 
their every motion bespeaks conscious power and strength. The 
Terns, on the other hand, are characterized by a delicate perfection 
of outline and a swift grace of movement, that seems ill-adapted to 
stern, pitiless surroundings. They are like swift yachts that winter 
in southern seas, and come back to us on the first warm breezes of 
summer. Yet the significance is perhaps only local, after all, for 
both Gulls and Terns herald the opening summer to the inhabitant 
of Labrador or Greenland. 
The Least Terns, although the smallest and seemingly the most 
delicate of their tribe, arrive first. By the middle of May they 
appear in certain favored spots, — for they are not anywhere very 
numerous, — and small colonies of from ten to fifty pairs are soon 
formed at various points along the shores of Cape Cod and upon 
some of the more sandy islands in the Vineyard Sound. 
A few days after the advent of the “ Little Strikers,” as the 
Least Terns are called by the ’longshoremen of Virginia, the Wil- 
son’s and Roseate Terns begin to appear. They are already paired, 
but, judging by the occasional bickerings and jealousies that arise, 
even the more sedate females are not above a little harmless flirta- 
tion. It is a pretty sight to see the mated birds sitting side by 
side upon some long sand-spit, all with their breasts turned to the 
soft morning breeze, and each little glossy black cap glistening in the 
sunlight. Forty or fifty there may be altogether, with others con- 
tinually arriving from the distant fishing-grounds. As the incom- 
ing birds settle among their fellows, a low murmur of welcome 
runs through the assembled throng, and fifty pairs of wings are 
simultaneously raised above their owners’ backs. It is like the 
greeting offered by men to one w T hom they delight to honor, save 
that among these simple sea-birds even the humblest are rarely 
neglected. Those individuals occupying the higher portion of the 
bar are squatted on the warm sand, or lying with wings partially 
extended to the grateful rays of the sun, while along the water’s 
edge many are washing and pluming themselves, scattering the 
salt spray in every direction, or toying with the lapping waves. 
As the rising tide encroaches on their domain, numbers of the more 
careless are floated off their feet, when the} T take w T ing and alight 
again among the rest. In this way the area continually narrows, 
until the birds are massed in a compact body upon the highest 
point. When this at length becomes submerged they all take wing 
