WHITE-WINGED BLAOTt TERN. 253 



that the flight continues throughout May ; also that he has 

 repeatedly seen them in the muddy harbours of Sussex. 



The Black Tern formerly bred on the marshes about E-ye 

 and in the Pevensey Levels, but has long ceased to do so. It 

 also bred in Kent, and in the great fens of Norfolk, Lincoln- 

 shire, and Cambridgeshire, from which last locality I still 

 have eggs which were taken in a very wet part of Quy fen 

 about fifty years ago. The nest is placed in a tuft of sedge 

 or rushes in a shallow pool, and lined with pieces of half- 

 decayed water- weeds. The bird feeds on dragon-flies and 

 other insects, as well as on small fish. 



Its flight, which I watched with great interest in Holland, 

 is exceedingly buoyant and bat-like. 



Several other specimens have been obtained inland, of 

 which I have not the dates. 



WHITE-WINGED BLACK TERN. 



Hydrochelidon leucoptera. 



This species is, in fact, much more an inhabitant of the 

 southern than of the northern regions, and its occurrence in 

 Britain is merely as an accidental wanderer, and there appear 

 to be only two recorded instances of its having occurred in 

 Sussex. In May 1873 an adult specimen was killed at South 

 Weighton, near Newhaven, and was preserved for a gentleman 

 residing in that neighbourhood, of which a notice was sent to 

 ' The Field ' of November 13th, 1875, by Mr. T. Colgate, 

 jun. A second example is recorded in the same paper of 

 June 19, 1875, by Mr. Clark Kennedy, as killed some few 

 years previously at Eastbourne. The Black Tern and the 

 present species have never been found breeding in company. 



