GULLS AND TERNS 
31 
a strip of sandy beach separating the surf from the tide marsh. 
Colonel Goss, speaking of the terns of Kansas, says : “ These little 
beauties, the smallest of the family, flit through the air like swal¬ 
lows, darting here or there for an insect, or suddenly stopping to 
hover, like hawks or kingfishers, over a school of minnows or 
shrimp, ready to drop on the first that comes to the surface.” 
GENUS HYDROCHELIDON. 
77. Hydrochelidon nigra surinamensis (GW.). American 
Black Tern. 
Web of feet reaching only to middle of toes. Adults in breeding plum¬ 
age: head, neck, and breast black; 
wings and tail slaty gray; under tail 
coverts white ; bill and feet black. 
Winter plumage: head, neck, and 
under parts white, orbital ring and 
ear coverts dusky ; upper parts blue gray. In late summer the white and 
black feathers are mixed on the breast. Young : similar to winter adults, 
but with edges of scapulars brown, and crown and back of head dusky. 
Length: 9.00-10.25, wing 8.25, bill 1.10, tail 3.75, forked for .90. 
Distribution. — Temperate part of North America, and south to Brazil 
and Chili. 
Nest. — Usually on dead floating rushes in shallow water, sometimes on 
the bare ground, or on an old muskrat house or a water-soaked log ; made of 
reeds, wild rice, and grasses, and lined with leaves and fine stems. Eggs: 
2 to 4, greenish drab to olive brown, spotted with blackish brown. 
The first sight of Hydrochelidon in the breeding season is an amaz¬ 
ing one, for as you see the tern-like form approaching across a lake 
your imagination clothes it in white, but when it reaches you — lo ! 
its fore parts are jet black. Another surprise comes, when, associat¬ 
ing its kin with wide lakes and ocean shores, you find one beating 
over a patch of marsh between the angles of a meadow brook, or 
circling over a pool in a barnyard ! But, in spite of the shocks 
given your preconceived ideas, this swallow-like tern excites your 
keenest interest, and whether on the prairies of Texas or in the valleys 
of the high Sierra, you soon find yourself eagerly watching for the 
strange bird, and every landscape graced by its form goes down to 
memory with a charm all its own. 
