LARID.«. 



637 



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THE WHISKERED TERN. 



HVDROCHELIDOX HYBRIDA (Pallas). 



The Whiskered Teni has even a less northward range than the 

 preceding species, and only wanders to our islands at long intervals. 

 It was first recognized by Heysham, who selected the subject of the 

 above illustration from some sea-birds which had been shot at Lyme 

 in Dorsetshire towards the end of August 1836 ; in September 1839 

 one (in the Warren collection at the Dublin Museum) was obtained 

 at the mouth of the Liffey ; a third was killed, according to Mr. 

 Southwell, near Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, in 1842 ; an adult female 

 containing advanced ova was shot on Hickling Broad, Norfolk, on June 

 17th 1847, ^"d one was obtained at Dersingham in October 1890 ; 

 an immature example was procured at the end of August 185 1, near 

 Tresco, in the Scilly Islands ; an exhausted adult picked up on the 

 water near Plymouth in May 1865 and presented to me by the late 

 Mr. Gatcombe, is now in the British Museum ; and Mr. Hart, of 

 Christchurch, Hants, has an adult killed in June 1875. An old male, 

 shot in Nithsdale, on May 28th 1894, is in the Edinburgh Museum. 



This Tern is a very rare straggler to Northern Germany, and 

 seldom wanders up the valley of the Rhone, though it used to nest 

 sparingly in the delta of that river. Large numbers arrive by the 

 middle of April to breed in the marshes of the south-west of Spain ; 



