32 
THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
Young puffins, like young auks and guillemots, are hatched covered with long down. The 
parents feed them on fish, which they deposit at the mouth of the burrow twenty at a time, 
and give them to the young bird one by one. When the female is sitting, her mate feeds 
her in a similar way. 
Puffins lay only a single egg, which differs from that of its relatives the Auks and Guille- 
mots in being white. The white colour enables the sitting-bird to see it in the dark burrow. 
THE GULL TRIBE 
To get at the real inwardness of the Gull Tribe, so to speak, we must examine their 
anatomy very closely; then we shall be convinced that they are modified Plovers, and have 
nothing to do with the Petrels, to 
which they bear 
semblance. 
an undoubted re- 
Terns 
Terns are gulls in miniature, on 
which account it ,is probable that 
many a visitor to the seashore 
passes them unwittingly. But let him 
watch next time for what look like 
flocks of tiny, long-winged, and un- 
usually active gulls, now hovering 
gracefully in the air, and now sud- 
denly plunging headlong like an arrow 
to the sea, with a force and dash that 
will surprise him, now that attention 
is drawn to them. These are terns. 
P'rom their vivacity and forked tails, 
they have been aptly named Sea- 
swallows. 
There are several species -of tern. 
Like the Gulls, they have a dis- 
tinctiv^e dress for summer and winter, 
but the sexes are both dressed alike. 
The general livery, as with the Gulls, 
is pearly grey above and pure white 
below — in summer, in some species, 
relieved by a black head. One species, 
the Roseate Tern, has the breast 
suffused with a most exquisite rose- 
pink, which fades rapidly after death, 
however. Young terns, in their first 
plumage, differ conspicuously from their parents, having much brown intermixed with grey. 
Terns lay about three eggs, which are deposited among the shingle on the beach ; and 
so closely do the eggs, and later on the young, resemble the surrounding stones that it is 
almost impossible to find them. As a rule terns breed in colonies, often numbering many 
thousand birds. 
There are exceptions to the rule just laid down as to nest-building. One species of the 
Noddy Terns, for e.xample, builds a nest of turf and dry grass, placed in bushes or in low 
trees. It seems to return to the same nest year after year, adding on each return new 
materials, till they form masses nearly 2 feet in height. Occasionally it appears to make a 
mud-nest, placed in the fork of a tree; whilst the superb little White Noddy often deposits 
Photo by G. li''atmough IVehster <5r» 
TERNS ON A SHINGLE BANK 
\^Cheiter 
Terns lay their eggs among the shingle ; ft'om their coloration^ these are difficult to 
detect among the surrounding stones 
