Page:The birds of America, volume 7.djvu/149

Rh off the Bay of Fundy and Newfoundland into Baffin's Bay; others, younger, and unwilling to encounter the perils of a more extended flight, passing up the Gulf of St. Lawrence, either through the Straits of Cansso, or the broader channel between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, and betaking themselves to the Magdalene Islands and the coasts of Labrador. While at American Harbour in June 1833, my son and some of his com- panions met with a low rocky island, on which hundreds of these Terns had deposited their eggs. No other species was seen there; the birds were mostly sitting, and, on the landing of the party, they all rose as if in the greatest consternation, hovered over their heads, and left their eggs to the mercy of the intruders, who carried off a basketful of them, with a few of the birds themselves.

On the ISth of the same month, the Arctic Terns were found breeding on another island in considerable numbers; many dozens of their eggs were gathered, and delicious food indeed they proved to be. The full number of their eggs is three, but as it was early in the season many had only two. Their average dimensions were an inch and a quarter in length, and five- eighths in their greatest breadth; they were oval, but rather sharp at the smaller ends; their ground-colour a light olive, irregularly covered with patches of dark umber, larger towards the round end. They were deposited on the rocks wherever there was any grass, but no nest had been formed for their reception. They differed extremely in their colour, indeed quite as much as those of the Sandwich Tern. As we approached the little island, they all rose in the air, and flew high over our heads, screaming loudly, which they continued to do until we left the place. Several were shot, and as each fell the rest immediately plunged through the air after it. Whenever one was wounded so slightly as to be able to make off, it was lost to us, and the rest followed it. Only a very few of those which we saw and shot had the bill entirely red, and those which had were evidently older birds. Some exhibited a considerable portion of the point tinged with brownish-black, yet all of them could easily be distinguished from the Sterna Hirundo, first by their smaller size, shorter tarsi, more delicate bill, and greater curvature of the outer part of their wings; and secondly, by the leaden tint of their lower parts, from the neck to the tail, those parts in Sterno Hirundo being pure white. The back is also of a deeper blue in the Arctic Tern. The long tail-feathers were much shorter in the females than in the males, but M. Temjiixck is wrong in saying that this bird has the tail proportionally longer than that of other species, the Roseate Tern having it of much greater length, considering its diminutive size.

At the beginning of the first autumn, the plumage of the young so much resembles that of the young of Sterna Hirundo, that a person, not paying