Sylph-like bird of the waters, how delightful has it been to me to gaze on thy gliding movements, on the fannings of thy gentle wings, on the delicate silvery glance of thy soft and sattiny bosom, as thou camest from distant and unknown shores, when the winter had passed away, and the mild breezes of early summer blew around thee, and thou soughtest a place of safety in which to sojourn for a time. That frail frame of thine must have suffered many a hardship. Fronting that last damp and chilling blast, I have seen thee gathering up all thy little strength to force thy way; and when the fury of the tempest assailed thee, wert thou not glad to seek for refuge under yon bold headland! Ah, deny it not, for I have seen the delight expressed by thee, when after awhile, returning calm and sunshine revived thee, and thou spreadest thy wings anew, to ramble gaily over the still turbulent waters. Well knowest thou, heaven-taught, each bar and shallow along the desolate shore which thou skirtest pilotless; soon shalt thou reach the haven where last summer smiled on thee and thy brood; and there shalt thou gracefully alight by the side of one whose love is all to thee. As no account of this species exists in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, it is to be supposed that it is not met with beyond the western shores of Labrador, where however I found it in abundance and breeding, in the beginning of June 1833. On the 14th of August following I observed them at Newfoundland, moving southward in detached parties of old and young, against a strong breeze, and uttering their clamorous cries. Again, in the end of April 1837, hundreds of pairs were breeding on the islands of Galveston Bay in Texas, the numerous specimens which I then examined exhibiting no difference from those obtained in Labrador and in our Middle Districts. Nay, once, in the middle of June, while wading through the quick-sands of Bayou Sara in Louisiana, I came to a high and dry sand-bar where I picked up several eggs belonging to three pairs of birds of this species, although the distance was about two hundred miles from the sea in a direct line. I have at various times observed this Tern on the waters of the Ohio in autumn, and now and then in spring, at the latter period in company with the Short-tailed Tern, _Sterna nigra_, and have again met with it on the shores of Lake Erie. I have also found it in winter on the eastern coast of the Floridas, but in small numbers. Few birds indeed seem to me to be so irregular in their migratory movements, for they appear to stop at any convenient breeding place from Texas to Labrador.