GULL-BILLED TERN. 
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lows over the salt-marshes, in quest of some aquatic insects or 
spiders which occur upon the surface ot the water. Their 
food while here appears wholly composed of insects ; in 
Europe also their fare is similar, and they feed upon lepidop- 
terous insects or moths as well as other kinds, showing indeed 
by this peculiarity of appetite their independence on the 
produce of the ocean, and their indifference to salt water as 
preferred to fresh. 
The Marsh Terns keep apart by themselves, and breed in 
company on the borders of the salt-marshes among the drift- 
grass, preparing no artificial nest, laying three or four eggs of 
a greenish olive spotted with brown. The voice of this species 
is sharper and stronger than that of the Common Tern. 
This Tern is common along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the 
Southern States, and occasionally examples wander to Long Island 
and the Great Lakes. One has been taken in Massachusetts, and 
one in the Bay of h'undy. 
Though not a fish-eating Tern, this bird is rarely found away 
from the sea-shore in America. It utters a variety of notes, the 
most common being fairly represented by the syllables kay-wek, 
kay-wek. One note is described as a laugh, and is said to sound 
like hay-hay-hay. 
