258 
COMMON TERN. 
the different pairs move about, renew their caresses, and scoop out a little 
cavity in the soil. If you come again in a few days, you will find the place 
covered with eggs. There they lie, three in each hollow, beautifully spotted 
and pointed ; and as they receive heat enough from the sun, the birds have 
left them until evening. But not absent are they from the cherished spot, 
for they have seen you, and now they all fly up screaming. Although 
unable to drive you away, they seem most anxiously to urge your departure 
by every entreaty they can devise ; just as you would do, were your family 
endangered by some creature as much stronger than yourself as you are 
superior to them. Humanity fills your heart, you feel for them as a parent 
feels, and you willingly abandon the place. The eggs are soon hatched ; • 
the young in due time follow their parents, who, not considering their 
pleasant labour ended when they are able to fly, feed them on wing in the 
manner of Swallows, until they are quite capable of procuring their sub- 
sistence themselves. So soon as this is the case, the young birds fly off in 
bands, to seek on distant shores, and in sunny climes, the plentiful food 
which the ocean yields. 
The nest of the Common Tern is, as I have said, a mere hollow made in 
the loose sand of some island or mainland beach, scantily tufted with wiry 
grass, or strewed with sea-weeds. Their eggs never exceed three in number ; 
their average length is 1 inch 51 eighths, their breadth 1^ inches. They 
vary greatly in their markings, as is the case with those of all the smaller 
species of this family ; but their ground colour is generally pale yellowish- 
green, blotched and spotted with brownish-black and purplish-grey or 
neutral tint. 
The young, which are fed with small fishes, shrimps, and insects, separate 
from the old birds when fully fledged, and do not again associate with them 
until the following spring, when both are found breeding in the same places. 
It seems quite curious to see these young birds in winter, during boisterous 
weather, throwing themselves into the remotest parts of estuaries, and even 
visiting salt-water ponds at some distance from the sea, as I have often seen 
them do at Charleston, in South Carolina, when accompanied by my friend 
the Rev. Dr. Bachman. Their plumage is then so very different from that 
of the old birds, that one might readily believe them to be of another spe- 
cies, did he not observe that their mode of flying and their notes are the 
same. Not less strange is it, that on such occasions none of the old birds 
are to be seen in the place, they having remained, braving the fury of the 
tempest, on the outer harbours. In the beginning of winter, young birds 
also sometimes ascend the Mississippi as far as Natchez ; and in the same 
manner betake themselves to all the large lakes bordering the Gulf of 
Mexico. There, as well as elsewhere, you see them plunge into the water, 
