OTES 



*^* A series o£ Articles commencing next month will deal Avitli tlie 

 records concerning British birds, published from 1899 to May 31st, 1907, 

 consequently extracts from periodical literature will not begin under this 

 heading until next month. 



THE FAE SOUTHERN WINTER QUARTERS OF 



THE ARCTIC TERN. 

 In working out the birds obtained by the Scottish National 

 Antarctic Expedition, I found, to my great surprise, that all 

 the Terns captured in widely scattered portions of the 

 Weddell Sea, Antarctic Ocean, belonged to the most 

 northern representative of their genus, namely, to Sterna 

 macrura, the Arctic Tern ! 



Specimens were obtained between 64° 29' and 72° 18' S. 

 latitude and from 12° 49' to 35° 29' W. longitude. They 

 were often observed in considerable numbers, and are 

 logged for March 5th, 1904, as being seen in thousands in 

 72° 31' S. ; while from the 9th to the 13th of the same 

 month, when off Coats Lands, in 74° 1' S., 22° 0' W., many 

 were seen. Thus this bird so familiar to British Ornith- 

 ologists would seem to have the most extensive latitudinal 

 range to be found among vertebrate animals, since it is 

 now known to occur from 82° N. to 74° 1' S. It is at 

 present the only Tern known to occur south of the 

 Antarctic Circle. 



The occurrence of this boreal species in the far-off ice 

 fields of the South Polar Ocean during the northern 

 winter season, is one of the most interesting zoological 

 discoveries made by the many recent Antarctic expeditions. 

 That it is only a winter visitor does not admit of doubt 

 for the bird certainly does not breed there ; nor is any other 

 Tern, so far as we know, a native of the Antarctic Con- 

 tinent. These very remarkable southern incursions are, no 

 doubt, to be explained by the extraordinary abundance of 

 food, especially of crustaceans swimming at or near the 

 surface, to be fomid in the icy waters of the far south in 

 the smnmer (our northern winter). This allm-es the Terns, 

 and other birds, further and further towards the pole, 

 until the great ice-barrier, which almost girdles the Ant- 

 arctic Continent, arrests their further progress, since at its 

 base the food supply entirely ceases. 



William Eagle Clarke. 



