Sandwich Tern

Sandwich Tern
Sterna cantiaca, Gmelin [now Thalasseus sandvicensis]
Octavo edition, plate 431

“On the 26th of May, 1832, while sailing along the Florida Keys in Mr. Thruston's barge, accompanied by his worthy pilot and my assistant, I observed a large flock of Terns, which, from their size and other circumstances, I would have pronounced to be Marsh Terns, had not the difference in their manner of flight convinced me that they were of a species hitherto unknown to me. The pleasure which one feels on such an occasion cannot easily be described, and all that it is necessary for me to say on the subject at present is, that I begged to be rowed to them as quickly as possible. A nod and a wink from the pilot satisfied me that no time should be lost, and in a few minutes all the guns on board were in requisition. The birds fell around us; but as those that had not been injured remained hovering over their dead and dying companions, we continued to shoot until we procured a very considerable number. On examining the first individual picked up from the water, I perceived from the yellow point of its bill that it was different from any that I had previously seen, and accordingly shouted ‘A prize! a prize! a new bird to the American Fauna!’ And so it was, good reader, for no person before had found the Sandwich Tern on any part of our coast. A large basket was filled with them, and we pursued our course.”

John James Audubon, Birds of America (New York: J.J. Audubon; Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier, 1840-1844), vol. 7, p. 87.

View bird in National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.

A specimen of this species, collected by Audubon, is housed in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.