2.^4 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



Its food, iiidification, and general habits, resemble tliose of 

 the preceding species. Tlie note is said to be harsher and 

 louder. 



THE GULL-BILLED TERN. 



Sterna anglica. 



The recognition of this very distinct species is due to Mon- 

 tagu, whose type specimen, described and figured by him in 

 the Supplement to his Ornithological Dictionary, was shot 

 by himself in Sussex, and should be now preserved, with the 

 rest of his collection in the British Museum ; though the late 

 Mr. G. R, Gray, in his ' Catalogue of British Birds in the 

 Collection of the British Museum/ p. 241, assigned Kent as 

 the locality of the only example in that collection enrolled 

 by him. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that this 

 county (Sussex) furnished the subject upon which this species 

 is based, a fact the more remarkable wnen its extraordinarily 

 wide range throughout the world is considered. It is not only 

 found breeding in some localities in Europe from Denmark 

 southwards, but apparently across the whole of Asia and its 

 islands to Australia, as well as on the Atlantic coast of 

 America from Connecticut to probably Brazil. At first, Mon- 

 tagu thought that the bird he obtained in Sussex — he unfor- 

 tunately does not give the precise locality or date — was an 

 example of the Sandwich Tern, which species had not long 

 before been described by Latham ; but on becoming the pos- 

 sessor of his type specimen of that species, Avhich should 

 now be in the British Museum, Montagu, of course, saw 

 how very distinct they were, and accordingly did not hesitate 

 to describe the present one as new, From his statement that 



