, MARSH TERN. 151 
the tail, which was white, shafted, and broadly centred 
with black. 
The birds from which these descriptions were taken, 
were shot on the 25th of May, before they had begun 
to breed. The female contained a great number of eggs, 
the largest of which were about the size of duck shot ; 
the stomach, in both, was an oblong pouch, ending in a 
remarkably hard gizzard, curiously puckered or plaited, 
containing the half dissolved fragments of the small 
silver sides, pieces of shrimps, small crabs, and skippers, 
or sand fleas. 
On some particular parts of the coast of Virginia these 
birds are seen, on low sand bars, in flocks of several 
hundreds together. There more than twenty nests have 
been found within the space of a square rod. The young 
are, at first, so exactly of a colour with the sand on 
which they sit, as to be with difficulty discovered, unless 
after a close search. 
The sheerwater leaves our shores soon after his 
young are fit for the journey. He is found on various 
coasts of Asia, as well as America, residing principally 
near the tropics, and migrating into the temperate: 
regions of the globe only for the purpose of rearing his 
young. He is rarely or never seen far out at sea, and 
must not be mistaken for another bird of the same 
name, a species of petrel,* which is met with on every 
part of the ocean, skimming, with bended wings, along 
the summits, declivities, and hollows of the waves. 
GENUS LX1L— STERNA, Linnaeus. 
247. STERNA ARANEA , WILSON. MARSH TERN. 
WILSON, PLATE LXXII. FIG. VI. 
This new species I first met with on the shores of 
Cape May, particularly over the salt marshes, and 
darting down after a kind of large black spider, plenty 
in such places. This spider can travel under water as 
* Procellaria Puffinus , the Sheerwater Petrel. 
