BLACK TERN. 165 



THE BLACK TERN. ?>'^ 



Hyil) •oclielidon n igra. 



The Black Tern is an occasional visitor to our rivers in 

 spring and early autumn, one or more occurring every year. 

 Adult birds in breeding dress generally appear in INIay, but in 

 one instance I have known an example shot near Banbury in 

 the last days of April, and Mr. C. E. Stubbs has recorded the 

 occurrence o£ another at Henley in June [Zooloffist, ss, p. 2684). 

 In autumn it revisits us in August and September, young 

 birds, with mottled heads and white underparts, being natu- 

 rally more often met with then than the adults. Two 

 specimens in the immatiu'e dress, procured on Port Meadow, 

 are in the University Museum. 



The following examples of the Black Tern have been 

 procured during the last five years : one, adult, on the Isis 

 near Kelmscott, May, 1884; one, immature, Wescot Barton, 

 21st August, 1884; one, immature, Banbury, 9th September, 

 1885; one, adult, Banbury, 30th April, 1886; one, adult, 

 Oxford, 7th May, 1886 j one, adult female (of two seen), 

 Oxford, 30th May, 1887. 



The Black Tern formerly nested in the English Fens, and 

 the Rev. ]Murray A. Mathew was informed that it bred on 

 Otmoor at the time he was in residence at the University, at 

 Merton ( 1 855-60). He writes — ' I never took the Black Tern's 

 nest myself on Otmoor, but was told by several (old Osman 

 among the number) that it was breeding there in my time ' (in 

 lit. 15th June, 1886). Osman was an old and well-known 

 Oxford bird-stuffer. Previous to his leaving the county in 

 1 854, as he kindly informs me, the Rev. Andrew Matthews 

 had never heard of the Black Tern nesting in this locality, and 

 I have been unable to glean any further information respecting 

 it, but it is quite possible that it may have done so. 



