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Once in a great while a single gull or tern made its appearance, just often enough to keep me wondering why they were not there oftener, and one day a water turkey went suddenly over my head and dropped into the river on the farther side of the island.
One day I noticed a curious circumstance; standing on the edge of a plain, terminated by a great cliff of about a thousand feet in depth, I saw at the distance of a few yards right to windward, some tern, struggling against a very strong breeze, whilst, where I stood, the air was quite calm.
He nests in summer in the Northern States, and in the fall travels south. He can sleep standing on one leg or floating on the water. His nest is usually built on the ground, but sometimes in a tree. He goes fishing and clamming for a living. The Common Tern or Sea Swallow
"The white ants are now issuing from the ground in vast numbers in the winged state, and are taking flight. Myriads of the black and white tern and the white storks are following them. The lizards are also at work in the general persecution. "April 26, 27. Made new garden beds. All the seeds sown by the troops are above ground, to the great delight of the men.
Among species likely to be exterminated in the near future are the wood-duck and band-tailed pigeon. COLORADO: Sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse; nearly all the shore birds. CONNECTICUT: All the shore birds; quail, purple martin. DELAWARE: Wood duck, upland plover, least tern, Wilson tern, roseate tern, black skimmer, oystercatcher, and numerous other littoral species.
Late in the afternoon we saw a flock of gannets, and some sooty tern; the gannets passing so near that we could hear the motion of their long twisted wings. Later still, a number of small reef-birds passed over head; all were flying westward. This confirmed Arthur in his belief of the proximity of land.
Heave-to, and strike, sir, to His Britannic Majesty's schooner Tern!" The only reply to this was a rattling volley of musketry, evidently aimed at me as I stood on the weather rail, just abaft the main rigging, for I heard the bullets whistling all round my head. "If you don't heave-to, sir," I exclaimed angrily, "by heaven, I will fire into and sink you!"
He felt the sun very hot upon his shoulders, and he heard the harsh, insistent jarring of a tern that hovered and circled with forked tail and sharp white wings in the sunlight just above their heads; but all the time he stood staring into the good old gentleman's face. It was Parson Jones who first spoke. "But what do all these figures mean?"
What with the strong, far-leaping fish, and the agile, acrobatic birds, the existence of the small fry is one of perplexity and terror. Six species of tern take part in these gyrating, foraging campaigns. Three show almost purely white as they fly; the others, less numerous, as dark flakes in the living whirlwind.
On the very edge of the sandbank there's a string of white sea-swallows, sitting each on its own reflection. There are several kinds, and they rise as we pass, and I see, for the first time, the Roseate Tern, a sea-swallow with deep lavender and black feathers, rather telling with its scarlet bill.
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