GULL-BILLED TERN. 409 



Savi includes this species in his Birds of Italy. It visits the 

 shores of the Red Sea; and M. Temminck says it is very 

 abundant in the islands of Sunda, several specimens sent him 

 from thence not differing from those of Europe. The Sterna 

 affinis of Dr. Horsfield, obtained in Java, is considered also 

 by M. Temminck to be of the same species. 



This Tern feeds on small fishes and large insects ; fre- 

 quenting marshes rather than the sea coast, and lays two or 

 three eggs, which, judging from figures of them in continental 

 works, are one inch eleven lines long, by one inch four lines 

 in breadth, of a dark olive-brown spotted with ash-colour 

 and two shades of dark red-brown. 



In the adult in summer the bill is black, and one inch and 

 a quarter in length from the point to the feathers on the fore- 

 head ; the angle at the symphisis of the lower mandible 

 rather prominent ; irides reddish-brown ; forehead, crown, and 

 nape jet black ; neck behind greyish- white ; back, scapulars, 

 wings, the coverts, secondaries, and tertials, upper tail-coverts 

 and tail-feathers uniform pale ash-grey ; the outside web of 

 the first primary slate-grey, the other primaries pearl-grey ; 

 chin, throat, breast, belly, and all the under surface white ; 

 legs, toes, membranes, and claws black. The whole length 

 of the bird figured from and described, fifteen inches and a 

 half ; wing from the wrist thirteen inches. 



I have seen two or three specimens of the adult bird killed 

 in winter, the head is then white. 



A young bird of the year, measuring thirteen inches, has 

 the bill blueish-black ; head on the top dull white, varied with 

 pale brown and dusky streaks ; on the ear-coverts a spot of 

 greyish-black ; neck all round white ; back, scapulars, and 

 tertials orange-brown, spotted with darker brown ; wing- 

 coverts ash-grey, tipped with pale orange-brown ; primaries 

 pearl-grey ; tail but little forked ; chin, neck, and all the 

 under surface of the body white. 



