CASPIAN TERN. 387 



The Caspian Tern is reported to breed annually at Sylt, 

 an island of Denmark, on the west coast of Jutland. M. 

 Nilsson says it visits also the mouth of the Baltic, and is 

 seen in the vicinity of the Elbe. It is included by several 

 naturalists in their birds of Germany. M. Temminck men- 

 tions that he has himself killed it, though rarely, on the coast 

 of Holland, and it visits the coasts of France. M. Necker 

 and Professor Schinz include this species among their birds 

 of Switzerland ; the former quoting four instances of its cap- 

 ture in the vicinity of Geneva ; the latter calls it the King 

 of the Sea-swallows, in reference to its very large size. M. 

 Temminck says it has been met with and killed on the ex- 

 tensive rocks near Bonifacio, a sea-port of Corsica. M. Savi 

 includes it in his work on the birds of Italy ; it inhabits the 

 Grecian Archipelago ; and the Russian naturalists who have 

 lately visited the Caucasus found it in the vicinity of the 

 Caspian Sea, where it was originally found, and from whence 

 it received its first name from Pallas. The Caspian Tern 

 has been found at Senegal, and at the Cape of Good Hope. 



M. Temminck tells us that the Caspian Tern feeds on 

 fish, and lays its two or three eggs in a hole in the sand, or 

 on the bare rocks near the edge of the sea. Eggs of this 

 species, obtained from Hamburgh, in my own collection, are 

 two inches six lines in length, by one inch and eight lines in 

 breadth ; of a yellowish stone colour, spotted with ash-grey, 

 and dark red-brown. 



When in their summer-plumage the bill is vermilion-red, 

 lightest in colour at the point ; the irides reddish-brown ; 

 forehead, all the top of the head, and the nape of the neck 

 rich black, the feathers of that colour on the occiput elon- 

 gated ; lower part of the neck all round white ; the back, 

 and all the upper surface of the body, the wings and tail- 

 feathers ash-grey ; the first six wing-primaries of a much 

 darker grey, a slate-grey, with white shafts ; the tail but 



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