CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 57 
78. White-winged Black Tern. 
LHydrochelidon leucoptera (MEIssn. & SCHINZ.) Bole. 1822. 
Six specimens of this species, or rather what I believed to be 
this species, were seen for hours one morning about the last of 
August, 1881, flying over a lake on the western flank of Porcupine 
Mountains in northwestern Manitoba. One of the birds was shot, 
but owing to our difficulties at the time (we were hauling our 
boats over a height of land) it spoiled before it was skinned. 
On June oth, 1896, I again had the good fortune to see a pair 
of these birds, which were evidently mated, but after watching 
them for an hour IJ could find no nest. They were circling around 
a small marshy pool across the road opposite to the entrance to 
the Experimental Farm at Brandon, Manitoba. I had no gun, and 
when I returned six weeks afterwards I saw no signs of terns 
around the pool. 
I take the following from my note-book, written at the time. 
‘“To-day was again surprised by seeing a pair of Black Terns 
with the bends of both wings evidently quite white. I watched 
them for a long time and found them to be identical with those 
I saw by the pool at Stony Mountain on the 4th inst. When the 
bird rested and its wings closed it seemed to have a white collar 
around the black head. There was a marked contrast between the 
plumbeous back, the white collar and the black head.” On June 
4th I saw a number of specimens circling over a pool by the road- 
side not far from the hotel at Stony Mountain, 14 miles from 
Winnipeg, Manitoba. The white was on the dend of doth wings in 
all the birds seen. (Macoun. 
Famity VI. RYNCHOPIDAL. Skimmers. 
XXVIII. RYNCHOPS Linnazus. 1758. 
80, Black Skimmer. 
Rynchops nigra LINN. 1758. 
Accidental on the South Atlantic coast. A large flock seen in 
the Bay of Fundy, 1879. (Boardman.) 
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