September 1875
Habits of the terns
Nantucket
1875
Sept. 21. [September 21, 1875] the grass with lowered head: this bird
bears the euphonious name of "craddock"
here probably so called from its
hoarse rattling note. Keeping on in
the boat & leaving B. to follow
by land we ran ashore a mile
or so further up the bay where
we were rejoined by B. who much
to our alarm came staggering up
in a very faint weak condition.
After attending to his wants as well
as circumstances would permit
we followed his tracks back &
recovered his gun which he had
dropped in the sand a mile or
more behind. He probably had
a partial attack of sun stroke.
Here I shot a Tringa canutus
in fall plumage. Seeing a number
of terns sitting on a sand bar
I took the boat and sculled out
to them. As I approached the [they] presented
a very pretty sight 40 or 50 of them
sitting close together, many lying
down and a few floating on the
water washing themselves. The position
of those standing up was nearly as 
follows [illustration]
I approached very
easily within gunshot and in a few
minutes shot down five or six all
S. hirundo [Sterna hirundo], but most of them y.y.
Afterwards sculled up to another
large flock and shot six or 
seven more. Here I heard the