THE GULL-BILLED TERN. 7 555 
Range in Ohio.—‘Accidental in winter on Lake Erie’ (Wheaton). A 
single specimen said to have been taken at Cleveland by Mr. Winslow, but no 
longer extant. 
THE Fork-tailed Gull is a bird of the Arctic regions, and our knowledge 
of it is obtained almost entirely from the journals of Arctic travellers, dating 
from that of the discoverer, Colonel Edward Sabine, in 1818. In common 
with several other birds of this group, its under parts are suffused with a 
delicate pinkish or rosy blush during the actual breeding season. One ob- 
server, Captain McFarlane, describes a male taken in July as “deeply tinged 
with crimson.” 
The species retires from the higher latitudes with the approach of winter, 
but only a scattering few come as far south as our northern borders. The 
bird’s claim to recognition here rests solely upon Mr. Winslow’s record of 
an immature bird, taken in Cleveland harbor many years since, and for a 
time preserved in the museum of the Cleveland Medical College. 
No. 266. 
GULL-BILLED TERN. 
A. O. U. No. 63. Gelochelidon nilotica (Hasselq.). 
Synonym.—Marsu TERN. 
Description.—Adult in summer: ‘Top of head and nape black; remaining 
upper parts light pearl-gray; primaries silver-gray over dusky, blackening on 
tips but with ivory-white shafts, and with some white on inner edge of inner web, 
the amount of white decreasing inwardly; tail slightly forked; remaining plumage 
white; bill rather short and stout, with conspicuous angle, and culmen decidedly 
curving toward tip,—hence like a Gull’s—black; feet blackish. Adult in winter: 
Similar, but head and neck white with dusky gray spots before eye and on ear- 
coverts and grayish suffusion on hind-neck or with traces of black cap in var- 
table proportions. Young: Like adult in winter, but upper parts with a buffy 
wash, and feathers of crown, hind neck, back, and scapulars, streaked or spotted 
with brownish dusky. Length 13.00-15.00 (330.2-381.) ; wing 12.00 (304.8) ; tail 
4.50-5.50 (114.3-139.7), forked 1.25-1.75 (31.8-44.5); bill 1.35 (34.3); depth 
of bill at base .48 (12.2) ; tarsus 1.30 (33.). 
Recognition Marks.—Size of Common Tern; bill shorter and stouter, black; 
wings longer. 
Nesting.—Not known to breed in Ohio. Nest, on the ground, usually of 
low islands, in sand or short grass, scantily lined, or not, with grass, etc. “Eggs, 
3-5, rather uniform buffy white, with numerous and obscure chocolate markings, 
1.80 x 1.30 (45.7 x 33.)” (Chapman). 
General Range.—Nearly cosmopolitan; in North America chiefly along the 
Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States, breeding north to southern New 
