956 



TERN 



to a genus in which the toes are only half-webbed, and the birds 

 of small size and dark leaden-grey plumage. It is without doubt 

 the Sterna of Turner, and in former days was abundant in many 

 parts of the fen country,^ to say nothing of other districts. Though 

 nearly all its ancient abodes have been drained, and for its pur- 

 poses sterilized these many years past, not a spring comes but it 

 shews itself in small companies in the eastern counties of England, 

 evidently seeking a breeding -place. All around the coast the 

 diminution in the numbers of the remaining species of Terns 

 Avithin the last 50 years is no less deplorable than demonstrable. 



The Sandwich Tern, S. sandvicensis or S. cantiaca — named from 

 the place of its discovery, though it has long since ceased to inhabit 

 that neighbourhood — is the largest of the British species, equalling 

 in size the smaller Gulls and having a dark-coloured bill tipped 

 with yellow, and dark legs. Through persecution it has been ex- 

 tirpated in all its southern haunts, and is become much scarcer in 

 those to which it still resorts. It was, however, never so abundant 

 as its smaller congeners, the so-called Common and the Aixtic Tern, 

 — two species that are so nearly alike as to be beyond discrimina- 

 tion on the wing by an ordinary observer, and even in the hand 

 require a somewhat close examination.^ The former of these has 

 the more southern range, and often affects inland situations, while 

 the latter, though by no means limited to the Arctic circle, is 

 widely distributed over the north and mostly resorts to the sea- 

 coast. Yet there are localities where, as on the Fame Islands, both 

 meet and breed, without occupying stations apart. The minute 

 diagnosis of these two species cannot be briefly given. It must 

 suffice here to state that the most certain difference, as it is the 

 most easily recognizable, is to be found in the tarsus, which in the 

 Arctic Tern is a quarter of an inch shorter than in its kinsman. 

 The remaining native species is the Lesser Tern, >S^. minufa, one of 

 the smallest of the genus and readily to be distinguished by its per- 

 manently white forehead. All the species already mentioned, 

 except the Black Tern, have much the same general coloration — 



/ It was known there as Carr-Swallow, Cakk-Crow and Blue Darr {qu.= 

 Daw ?). 



^ Linnaeus's diagnosis of his Sterna Mmndo points to his having had an 

 ' ' Arctic " Tern before him ; but it is certain that he did not suspect that specific 

 appellation (akeady used by other writers for the "Common" Tern) to cover a 

 second species. Some modern authorities disregard his name as being insufficiently 

 definite, and much is to be said for this view of the case. Undoubtedly 

 " hirundo" has now been used so indiscriminately as to cause confusion, which 

 is avoided by adopting the epithets of Naumann {Isis, 1819, pp. 1847, 1848), 

 who, acting on and confirming the discovery of Nitzsch (the first detector of tlie 

 specific diiference), called the more southern species S. fiuviatilis and the more 

 northern ^S". Tnacrura. Temminck's name, S. arctica, applied to the latter a year 

 later, has been until lately most generally used for it, notwithstanding. 



