CASPIAN STRONG-BILLED-TERN. 627 



wings, and tail light bluish-grey ; the outer six primaries of 

 a darker tint. 



Length about 20 inches ; bill 2^%, along the edge of 

 lower mandible 3-^ ; wing from flexure 16^ ; tail 6 ; tarsus 

 1^% ; middle toe l-^, its claw -^. 



Adult in Winter. — The head white, its hind part 

 variegated with black. Otherwise as in summer. 



Habits. — It is said to inhabit the Caspian Sea, the 

 Grecian Archipelago, some other parts of the Mediterranean, 

 the Baltic, and occasionally to be seen in various parts of 

 Denmark, Germany, Holland, France, and Switzerland ; as 

 well as to have been found at Senegal and the Cape of 

 Good Hope. Two individuals are mentioned by Messrs. 

 Paget as having been killed near Yarmouth ; one of them in 

 October, 1825. One, killed at Aldborough, is, according to 

 Mr. Jenyns, in the Museum of the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society. Mr. Yarrell mentions another shot in Norfolk in 

 1839. It does not appear to have been met with in Scot- 

 land. It is said to feed on fishes, to nestle on the sand or 

 on bare rocks on the sea-shore, and to lay two or three eggs 

 of a greyish-green or yellowish-grey colour, marked with 

 large brown and dusky spots. 



Young. — According to Temminck, the young when 

 fledged have all the lower parts pure white ; the upper 

 greyish-brown, marked with large spots and transverse bars 

 of blackish-brown ; the tail-feathers with a large blackish- 

 brown terminal space ; the quills almost entirely blackish- 

 brown. 



