GREAT TERN. 
81 
ther. 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 yel- 
lowish dun color, sprinkled with dark brown and pale Indian ink. 
Notwithstanding they seem thus negligently 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 tlie near ap- 
proach of any person instantly make their appearance over head ; 
uttering a hoarse jarring kind of cry, and flying about with evident 
svmptoms of great anxiety and consternation. The young are ge- 
nerally produced 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. Afterwards they fre- 
quently 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 Avarns them of the approach 
of an enemy, that on hearing their cries they instantly scpial, and 
remain motionless until the danger is over. 
The flight of the Great Tern, and indeed of the whole trihe, 
is not in the sweeping shooting manner of the land Swallows, not- 
withstanding their name; the motions of their long wings arc 
slower, and more in the manner of the Gull. '1 hey have, how- 
ever, great powers of wing, and strength m the muscles of the 
neck, which enable them to make such sudden and violent plunges, 
and that from a considerable height too, headlong on their prey, 
which they never seize but with their bills. In the evening, I 
X 
VOL. VII. 
