82 
GREAT TERN. 
have remarked, as they retired from the upper parts of the bays, 
rivers and inlets to the beach for repose, about breeding time, that 
each generally carried a small fish in his bill. 
As soon as the young are able to fly, they lead them to the 
sandy shoals and ripples where fish are abundant ; and while they 
occasionally feed them, teach them by their example to provide 
for themselves. They sometimes penetrate a great way inland, 
along the courses of rivers ; and are occasionally seen about all our 
numerous ponds, lakes and rivers, most usually near the close of 
the summer. 
This species inhabits Europe as high as Spitzbergen ; is found 
on the arctic coasts of Siberia and Kamtschatka, and also on our 
own continent as far north as Hudson’s bay. In New England 
it is called by some the Mackarel Gull. It retires from all these 
places, at the approach of winter, to more congenial seas and 
seasons. 
The Great Tern is fifteen inches long, and thirty inches in 
extent; bill reddish yellow, sometimes brilliant crimson, slightly 
angular on the lower mandible, and tipt with black ; whole upper 
part of the head black, extending to a point half way down the 
neck behind, and including the eyes ; sides of the neck and whole 
lower parts pure white; wing quills hoary, as if bleached by the 
weather, long and pointed ; whole back, scapulars and wing bluish 
white, or very pale lead color ; rump and tail-coverts white ; tail 
long and greatly forked, the exterior feathers being three inches 
longer than the adjoining ones, the rest shortening gradually for 
an inch and a half to the middle ones, the wdiole of a pale lead 
color ; the outer edge of the exterior ones black ; legs and webbed 
feet brilliant red lead ; membranes of the feet deeply scallopped ; 
claws large and black, middle one the largest. The primary quill 
feathers are generally dark on their inner edges. The female dif- 
fers in having the two. exterior feathers of the tail considerably 
shorter. The voice of these birds is like the harsh jarring of an 
