SHORT-TAILED TERN. 
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once made their appearance, flying* over those watery 
spaces, picking* up grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, and 
other insects, that were floating on the surface. Some 
hundreds of them might he 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 hindhead; the forehead, eye- 
lids, sides of the neck, passing quite round below the 
hindhead, 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 
