304 



LONG-WINGED SWIMMERS — LONGIPENNES. 



remaining quills light silvery gray, the inner web broadly edged witli white. Lateral and lower 

 part of head and neck (including lower half of the lores and extreme lower part of the nape), with 

 entire lowi-r parts. ]iuic wliitc, strongly tinged in fresh specimens with delicate rose-pink. Bill 

 black (reddisli busally, iu life) ; iris brown ; legs and feet briglit red (in life). Adult in winter: 

 Similar, but forehead and anterior part of crown white, the latter shaded with grayish and indis- 



Suinmer 2'>l>image. 



tinctly streaked with darker ; orbital region, occiput, and upper part of nape uniform black. 

 Young, first ■plunuige : Pileum and nape pale buffy grayish, finely mottled or sprinkled with darker, 

 and streaked, especially on the crown, with dusky ; orbital and auricular regions dusky blackish ; 

 remainder of the head, e.xtreme lower part of the nape, and entire lower parts, white, the nape, and 

 sometimes the sides of the breast, finely mottled with buffy gray. Back, scapulars, wing-coverts, 

 rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail, pale pearl-blue, the back and scapulars overlaid with pale bulf. 



Winter plumage. 



irregularly mottled with dusky, each feather with a submarginal dusky V-shaped mark ; primary 

 coverts and primaries darker bluish gray, edged with paler, the iimer webs of the latter broadly 

 edged with white. Tail-feathers marked near their ends much like the longer scapulars, their 

 outer webs rather dark grayish. Bill brownish dusky ; feet dusky. 



Total length, about 14.00 to 15.50 inches; extent, 30.00; wing, 9.25-9.75 ; tail, 7.25-7.75, 

 the depth of its fork, 3.50-4.50 ; culmen, 1.50 ; depth of bill at base, .35 ; tarsus, .85 ; middle 

 toe, .75. 



The beautiful Roseate Tern is almost cosmopolitan in its widely extended geograph- 

 ical distribution ; but in North America it appears to be confined to the Atlantic 

 Region, as I find no reference to its existence on any part of the Pacific coast ; nor 

 does any -writer mention meeting with it in the interior. It is also exclusively 

 maritime in its residence. 



IMr. Salvin found a few birds of this species breeding among the Keys on the coast 

 of Honduras late in April, but makes no mention of it as occurring on the west coast. 

 Leotaud refers to it as being a common bird in Trinidad, and as having habits nearly 



