sea-swallows

One of the most graceful of the sea-swallows this.

The Confessions of a Beachcomber 2003

Twice during lengthy intervals have I been perturbed by the conduct of the sea-swallows (terns) which breed in this neighbourhood.

Tropic Days 2003

Another and very different class, the terns or sea-swallows, owes its serious losses to conditions as bold and as inexorable as fate, and it would be unwise to conclude that the present scarcity is anything but temporary, while accepting the facts as illustrative of events that may happen elsewhere.

Last Leaves from Dunk Island 2003

Along the surface of the sea long lines of pelicans pursue a lumbering flight; graceful terns (sea-swallows) skim the waves; a great blue heron stalks across the hard sand, majestic, solitary and shy of man's approach; and dainty little beach-birds, piping plover in snowy white and drab, glide rapidly past the surf-line.

Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 of Popular Literature and Science Various

Close to the shore, sea-gulls and sea-swallows moved forward in the water, and fished.

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils 1922

It brings the oriole back to the branch where still swings her exquisite purse-shaped home of last summer; it leads each pair of fishhawks to their particular cartload of sticks, to which a few more must be added each year; it hastens the wing beats of the sea-swallows northward to the beach which, ten months ago, was flecked with their eggs -- the shifting grains of sand their only nest.

The Log of the Sun A Chronicle of Nature's Year William Beebe 1919

Ah! but the day was coming when she would spread her wings and skim over the ocean, buoyant and dainty as one of the terns, those sea-swallows that with their sharp white wings even now were hovering round her.

A Book of Quaker Saints 1911

And the one that was on the right side bounded across to the left side, and the one that was on the left to the right, and like two sea-swallows sported they around him.

The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19 Kenneth Morris 1908

The only dwellers in that solitude were the gulls, petrels, coots and sea-swallows.

Indiana 1900

On the very edge of the sandbank there's a string of white sea-swallows, sitting each on its own reflection.

From Edinburgh to India & Burmah 1900