LARID^ — THE GULLS AND TERNS — STERNA. 



295 



during the breeding-season, tliougli by no means so common as the smaller Black 

 Tern. It breeds in the same places with the common hirundo, several nests being 

 often placed in a small space. Some of their nests are very bulky. They breed in 

 the latter part of June, chietly in the large muddy reedy marshes of Blackhawk 

 Island, in Lake Koskonong. When his son Ludwig first discovered their breeding- 

 place, their young were generally hatched, and as he approached, the old birds gave 

 the alarm, and all the young birds deserted their nests and hid among the reeds. 



Eggs of this species in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution are from 

 Minnesota, Illinois, Cobb's Island, and from Shoal Lake in British America. The 

 ground-color is a pale buffy drab, varying to a pale grayish green. The markings 

 are of blackish brown, mingling with fainter markings of lilac-gray. They vary in 

 length from 1.55 to 1.80 inches, and in breadth from 1.20 to 1.15 inches. 



Sterna hirundo. 



THE COMMON TERN. 



Sterna MrundQ,^ Linn. S. N. ed. 10, L 1758, 137 ; ed. 12, L 1766, 227. — Wils. Am. Orn. VU. 1813, 



76, pi. 60, fig. 1. — NuTT. Man. IL 1834, 271. —Aud. Orn. Biog. IV. 1838, 74, pi. 309 ; Synop. 



1839, 318 ; B. Am. VI L 1844, 97, pi. 433. — CouES, Key, 1872, 320 ; Check List, 1873, no. 565 ; 



2d ed. 1882, no. 797 ; B. N. W. 1874, 680. 

 Sterna Jiuviatilis, Naum. Isis, 1819, p. 1847-48. — Sharpe & Dresser, B. Eur. Pt. XL (1872). — 



Saunders, P. Z. S. 1876, 649. 

 Sterna senegalensis, Swains. B. W. Afr. IL 1837, 250. 

 Sterna Wilsoni, Bonap. Comp. List, 1838, 61. — Lawr. in Baird's B. N. Am. 1858, 861. — Baird, 



Cat. N. Am. B. 1859, no. 689. 





S. hirundo. 



Hab. Palcearctic Region and Eastern North America, chiefly near the coast. Winters north 

 to about 37° ; breeds irregularly nearly throughout its range. Arizona (Henshaw) ; Bermudas 

 (summer resident). 



Sp. Char. Adult, in summer : Pileum and nape, including upper half of the lores, uniform 

 deep black. Upper parts deep pearl-gray (much the same shade as in yaradiscea'), the border of the 



1 We cannot at all share in Mr. Saunders's doubts ("Proceedings" of the Zoological Societj'of Lon- 

 don for 1876, pp. 650, 651) as to the general, or even exclusive, pertinence of Linnseus's descriptions of 

 his Sterna hirundo to the present species. 



