COMMON TERN. | §55 
the first week of May, 1875, I found them quite numerous at Chatham, Mass. They fre- 
quented the sand-bars near the shore, and kept apart from the Herring and Black- 
backed Gulls, the only other species of Laride present at the time. The Short-tailed 
Tern (Hydrochelidon nigra) can likewise no longer be regarded as a rare or accidental 
visitor. Their numbers vary considerably in different years, but they are always to be 
_ found during the fali migration. At Nantucket they were fairly numerous in August and 
September of 1878. I known of but one instance of the capture of this Tern in spring. 
‘¢Four species only out of the number accredited to New England are known to breed 
along its coast. They may be given in the order of their comparative abundance as fol- 
lows: The Wilson’s or Common Tern (8S. fluviatilis) ; the Roseate Tern (S. dougalli) ; the 
Arctic Tern (S. macrwra) (the choice of precedence between the last two species will 
vary as different localities are considered); and the Least Tern (S. antillarum). Of these 
the Roseate and Least Terns are for the most part confined to the waters of Cape Cod, 
while the Arctic and Common Terns brsed along the entire coast, and range northwards 
to unknown latitudes. Formerly a small colony of Least Terns nested annually upon 
the Ipswich sand-hills, but they have been entirely driven away by persecution. This 
point was probably about the extreme limit of their northern range upon the Atlantic 
coast. I have also upon one occasion found the Roseate Tern as far north as Casco Bay, 
Maine, where a small flock was observed upon the Green Island. They certainly were 
not nesting there, though the date, July 20, renders it not impossible that they had 
eggs or young on some of the neighboring islands. 
“¢ Spring comes over the sea laterthan upon the land, and fewer tokens are given of its 
presence. There is no freshening grass; no budding foliage, nor springing up of green 
things in sheltered places. Summer may be close at hand, but as yet the sea gives no 
sign. When the wind is from the north, the waves in the bay have that steely glint 
that they have borne all winter. The sand drifts drearily over the wind-swept beach- 
ridges, and the marshes are bleak and brown, while in the interior Robins may be 
hopping about upon green lawns, and violets blooming in every woodland nook. The 
Ducks and Geese, it is true, are marshalling their cohorts and stretching out in long 
lines northward, but the breath of ocean is still chill and cold. Indeed, the season is 
commonly far advanced, and the apple orchards in bloom inland, ere the winter Gulls 
are gone to their distant breeding-grounds. Scarcely has the rear guard of their legions 
departed, when the Terns begin to appear. And what a fitness is there in the chang- 
ing season! The larger Gulls, that enliven our shores through the colder months, seem 
born to breast the fiercesé gusts of winter and to wrest a living from icy seas. Bold, 
hardy, vigorous, they delight in the cold, and their every motion bespeaks conscious 
power and strength. The Terns, on the other hand, are characterized by a delicate per- 
fection of outline and a swift grace of movement, that seemsill-adapted to stern, pitiless 
surroundings. They are like swift yachts that winter in southern seas, and come back 
to us on the first warm breezes of summer. Yet the significance is perhaps only 
local, after all, for both Gulls and ferns herald the opening summer to the inhabitant of 
Labrador and Greenland. 
‘The Least Terns, although the smallest and seemingly the most delicate of their 
tribe, arrive first. By the middle of May they appear in certain favored spots,—for they 
are not anywhere very numerous,—and small colonies of from ten to fifty pairs are 
soon formed at various points along the shores of Cape Cod and upon some of the more 
sandy islands in the Vineyard Sound. 
‘“‘ A few days after the advent of the ‘Little Strikers,’ as the Least Terns are called 
by the ’longshoremen of Virginia, the Wilson’s and Roseate Terns begin to appear. 
