. A history of British birds : the figures engraved on wood . gregate in large-flocks, but particularly in the breeding season, when theyare more than usually restless, wheeling and redoublingtheir varied flight high in the air, and uttering their loudscreams in clamorous confusion. Some of the speciesare described as breeding on the shores, and depositingtheir two eggs upon the bare rock; others lay three orfour eggs in a hole made in the dry sand; and somekinds nestle among the reeds and rushes in the marshyborders of the lakes which they frequent. The youngones keep the nest a good while af
. A history of British birds : the figures engraved on wood . gregate in large-flocks, but particularly in the breeding season, when theyare more than usually restless, wheeling and redoublingtheir varied flight high in the air, and uttering their loudscreams in clamorous confusion. Some of the speciesare described as breeding on the shores, and depositingtheir two eggs upon the bare rock; others lay three orfour eggs in a hole made in the dry sand; and somekinds nestle among the reeds and rushes in the marshyborders of the lakes which they frequent. The youngones keep the nest a good while after they have beenhatched, not offering to leave it until their wings have * In the young of some species, the tails are nearly even at the^ BRITISH BIRDS. 181 attained sufficient length and strength to enable them tofly with ease and safety. One kind or another of these birds is met with by na-vigators in almost every part of the world. Latham enu-merates twenty-three species, besides varieties : five ofthe former and one of the latter are THE COMMON TERN. GREAT TERN, KIRMEW, OR SEA-SWALLOW.{Sterna Hirundo, Lin.—La grande Hirondelle de Mer, Buff.) This bird measures above fourteen inches in length,thirty in breadth, and weighs more than four bill is of a crimson colour, tipped with black, andabout two inches and a quarter in length: the head iscapped with a longish black patch, which extends overthe eyes, and ends in a point below the nape of the neck:the throat, cheeks, neck, and the whole of the underparts are white: the tail, which is long, and greatlyforked, is also white, except the two outside feathers,xvhich are black on their exterior webs j but in flying, z 2 1S2 BRITISH BIRDS. these forks are frequently closed so as to look like a singlefeather. The upper part of the plumage is of a fine palelead colour : the quills are of a deeper cast, the outsideones the darkest: the legs and feet red. The female, it is said, forms her nest in the mo
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