The Sooty tern. 
35i 
is only a few miles distant, alight on the water, and frequently on the yards 
of vessels, where, if undisturbed, they sleep until the return of day. It is 
from this circumstance that they have obtained the name of Noddy, to 
which in fact they are much better entitled than the present species, which 
has also been so named, but of which I never observed any to alight on a 
vessel in which I was for thirty-five days in the Gulf of Mexico, at a time 
when that bird was as abundant during the day as the other species, of which 
many were caught at my desire by the sailors. 
The present species rarely alights on the water, where it seems incom- 
moded by its long tail ; but the other, the Sterna stolida, which, in the 
shape of its tail, and in some of its habits, shews an affinity to the Petrels, 
not only frequently alights on the sea, but swims about on floating patches 
of the gulf weed, seizing on the small fry and little crabs that are found 
among the branches of that plant, or immediately beneath them. 
I have often thought, since I became acquainted with the habits of the 
bird which here occupies our attention, that it differs materially from all the 
other species of the same genus that occur on our coasts. The Sterna 
fuliginosa never dives headlong and perpendicularly as the smaller species 
are wont to do, such as St. Hirundo, St. arctica , St. minuta, St. 
Dougallii, or St. nigra, but passes over its prey in a curved line, and picks 
it up. Its action I cannot better compare to that of any other bird than the 
Night Hawk, while plunging over its female. I have often observed this 
Tern follow and hover in the wake of a porpoise, while the latter was 
pursuing its prey, and at the instant when by a sudden dash it frightens and 
drives toward the surface the fry around it, the Tern as suddenly passes over 
the spot, and picks up a small fish or two. 
Nor is the flight of this Tern characterized by the buoyancy aud unde- 
cidedness, if I may so speak, of the other species mentioned above, it being 
as firm and steady as that of the Cayenne Tern, excepting during the 
movements performed in procuring its food. Like some of the smaller 
Gulls, this bird not unfrequently hovers close to the water to pick up floating 
objects, such as small bits of fat pork and greasy substances thrown over- 
board purposely for making the experiment. 
There is a circumstance connected with the habits of the two species of 
which I now more particularly speak, which although perhaps somewhat 
out of place, I cannot refrain from introducing here. It is that the Sterna 
stolida always forms a nest on trees or bushes, on which that bird alights 
with as much ease as a Crow or Thrush ; whereas the Sterna fuliginosa 
never forms a nest of any sort, but deposits its eggs in a slight cavity which 
it scoops in the sand under the trees. But, reader, let us return to the Bird 
Key. 
