408 LARID.E. 



Kent, in the month of June, but of the otlier I have un- 

 fortunately mislaid the letter Avhich contained the particulars. 

 According- to M. Vieillot it has been taken in Picardy, and 

 on the coast of the Channel. M. Temminck says it is com- 

 mon in Hungary, and the confines of Turkey, and was in- 

 cluded by M. Savigny, among the Birds of Egypt. This 

 species appears to have a most extensive geographical range. 

 ]M. Temminck says he received a specimen killed in the 

 United States, and two others from Brazil : these last were 

 killed there by Prince Neuwied, and they did not either of 

 them differ from those obtained on the lakes of Hungary. 

 Mr. Selby says, " Upon investigating specimens from North 

 America, I feel no hesitation in considering the Marsh Tern 

 of Wilson's North-American Ornithology to be the same 

 bird." Mr. Audubon also says, " Having taken six specimens 

 of the American Marsh Tern to the British Museum, and 

 minutely compared them in all their details with the speci- 

 mens of the Gull-billed Tern, which formed part of the col- 

 lection of Colonel Montagu, and were procured in the South 

 of England, I found them to agree so perfectly that no doubt 

 remained with me of the identity of the bird described by 

 Wilson with that first distinguished by the English Orni- 

 thologist."" Colonel Sykes, in his published account of the 

 Birds of India, collected by himself, says of this species, my 

 " specimens correspond exactly with specimens of this rare 

 British Bird in the British Museum." 



Tlie specimens I have been able to examine, some from 

 Germany and others in the British Museum, appear to me to 

 be of the same species, the tarsus in all of them measuring 

 one inch and a quarter, the middle toe and claw together 

 being of the same length as the tarsus. M. Temminck men- 

 tions that Boie had received specimens from the eastern coast 

 of Jutland, where this bird is said to breed. Two examples 

 were seen in the south of Holland, in the summer of 1839, 

 by M. Temminck himself, one of which was obtained. M. 



