GREAT TERN. 
369 
laying. The preparation of a nest, which costs most other birds 
so much time and ingenuity, is here altogether dispensed with. 
The eggs, generally three in number, are placed on the surface 
of the dry drift grass, on the beach or salt marsh, and covered 
by the female only during the night, or in wet, raw, or stormy 
weather. At all other times, the hatching of them is left to 
the heat of the sun. These eggs measure an inch and three 
quarters in length, by about an inch and two-tenths in width, 
and are of a yellowish dun colour, sprinkled with dark brown 
and pale Indian ink. Notwithstanding they seem thus negli- 
gently abandoned during the day, it is very different in reality. 
One or both of the parents are generally fishing within view 
of the place, and, on the near approach of any person, instantly 
make their appearance over head ; uttering a hoarse jarring 
kind of cry, and flying about with evident symptoms of great 
anxiety and consternation. The young are generally pro- 
duced at intervals of a day or so from each other, and are 
regularly and abundantly fed for several weeks, before their 
wings are sufficiently grown to enable them to fly. At first 
the parents alight with the fish which they have brought in 
their mouth or in their bill, and, tearing it in pieces, distribute 
it in such portions as their young are able to swallow. After- 
wards, they frequently feed them without alighting, as they 
skim over the spot; and, as the young become nearly ready 
to fly, they drop the fish among them, where the strongest 
and most active has the best chance to gobble it up. In the 
mean time, the young themselves frequently search about the 
marshes, generally not far apart, for insects of various kinds ; 
but so well acquainted are they with the peculiar language of 
their parents that warn them of the approach of an enemy, 
that, on hearing their cries, they instantly squat, and remain 
motionless until the danger be over. 
The flight of the Great Tern, and, indeed, of the whole 
tribe, is not in the sweeping shooting manner of the land 
Swallows, notwithstanding their name ; the motions of their 
long wings are slower, and more in the manner of the Gull. 
VOL. II. 2 A 
