SHORT-TAILED TERN. 
375 
places, numerous flocks of this Tern all at once made their 
appearance, flying over those watery spaces, picking up grass- 
hoppers, beetles, spiders, and other insects, that were floating 
on the surface. Some hundreds of them might be seen at the 
same time, and all seemingly of one sort. They were busy, 
silent, and unsuspicious, darting down after their prey without 
hesitation, though perpetually harassed by gunners, whom the 
novelty of their appearance had drawn to the place. Several 
flocks of the Yellow-shanks Snipe, and a few Purres, appeared 
also in the meadows at the same time, driven thither doubtless 
by the violence of the storm. 
I examined upwards of thirty individuals of this species by 
dissection, and found both sexes alike in colour. Their 
stomachs contained grasshoppers, crickets, spiders, & c., but 
no fish. The people on the sea coast have since informed me 
that this bird comes to them only in the fall, or towards the 
end of summer, and is more frequently seen about the mill- 
ponds and fresh water marshes than in the bays ; and add, that 
it feeds on grasshoppers and other insects which it finds on 
the meadows and marshes, picking them from the grass, as 
well as from the surface of the water. They have never 
known it to associate with the Lesser Tern, and consider it 
altogether a different bird. This opinion seems confirmed by 
the above circumstances, and by the fact of its greater extent 
of wing, being full three inches wider than the Lesser Tern ; 
and also making its appearance after the others have gone off. 
The Short-tailed Tern measures eight inches and a half 
from the point of the bill to the tip of the tail, and twenty- 
three inches in extent ; the bill is an inch and a quarter in 
length, sharp pointed, and of a deep black colour ; a patch of 
black covers the crown, auriculars, spot before the eye and 
hind head; the forehead, eyelids, sides of the neck, passing 
quite round below the hind head, and whole lower parts are 
pure white ; the back is dark ash, each feather broadly tipt 
with brown ; the wings, a dark lead colour, extending an inch 
and a half beyond the tail, which is also of the same tint, and 
