CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 59 



This tern is a summer resident in the St. Lawrence valley. In 

 the county of Leeds, Ont., I first noticed it near Gananoque lake 

 in 1893, about six miles north of the St. Lawrence, where on the 

 7th July, I found a nest among the flags, containing three eggs on 

 the point of hatching. Each year since, I have found two or three 

 nests in the same locality. The birds choose very wet, miry 

 places to lay in. Two nests were found on old musk-rat houses, 

 another on a log of wood in a pool far out in the marsh, others in 

 equally swampy places. Three completes the set of eggs, which 

 are usually laid between the 7th and 14th June. In the spring of 

 1894 these birds were very plentiful; since that time not so much 

 so. I noticed a number of them in the Bay of Quinte in July, 

 1896, and Dr. C. K. Clarke, of Kingston, tells me that a number of 

 pairs nested at Cataraqui marsh in 1897. {Rt^'"- C.J. Yotmg.) 



This species breeds in all the large marshes that I have visited 

 in western Ontario, and nests on the dilapidated musk-rat houses 

 and other debris, laying from two to four eggs. {W. Smifiders.) 



78. White-winged Black Tern. 



Hydrochelidonleiicoptera (Meisn. & Schinz.) Boie. 1822. 

 Six specimens of this species, or rather what I believed to be 

 this species, were seen for hours one morning about the last of 

 August, 1881, flying over a lake on the western flank of Porcupine 

 mountains in northwestern Manitoba. One of the birds was shot, 

 but owing to our difficulties at the time (we were hauling our boats 

 over a height of land) it spoiled before it was skinned. 



On June 9th, 1896, I again had the good fortune to see a pair of 

 these birds, which were evidently mated, but after watching them 

 for an hour I could find no nest. They were circling around a 

 small marshy pool across the road opposite to the entrance to the 

 Experimental Farm at Brandon, Manitoba. I had no gun, and 

 when I returned six weeks afteiwards I saw no signs of terns 

 around the pool. 



I take the following from my note-book, written at the time: 

 " To-day was again surprised by seeing a pair of black terns with 

 the bends of both wings evidently quite white. I watched them 

 for a long time and found them to be identical with those I saw 

 by the pool at Stony mountain on the 4th inst. When the bird 



