204 On the so-called Sterna Portlandica. 



Coues' description of that example (Birds of the Northwest, 

 p. 691). He says, "bill and feet black, but the latter with 

 a perceptible reddishness."* Now here we have an approach, 

 however slight, to the red bill and feet of S. macrura, the 

 first link in fact of a chain or series of specimens which is 

 required to connect the two stages of plumage. 



Dr. -Coues in the article above quoted, compares Portland- 

 ica with Dougalli; but if our specimen be identical with the 

 type (and it has been unqualifiedly declared to be so, by the 

 best judges, Dr. Coues himself included), he is surely at 

 fault, for in almost every respect does our bird differ. The 

 wings are much longer, the tarsi shorter and "the size ot 

 the white areas on the inner webs of the primaries" is decid- 

 edly not "exactly as in Dougalli ." In Dougalli these white 

 areas run along the entire length of the feather on its inner 

 edge, narrowing as they approach the tip, where they again 

 broaden out and including the extreme point of the feather, 

 extend a little way back on the margin of the outer web. 



In Portlandica they come entirely to an end a full inch 

 from the tip o.f the feather, and in this and every respect the 

 pattern of coloration of the primaries is precisely the same 

 as in S. macrura. Neither is the bill of our specimen at all. 

 "identical" either in "shape or size" with that of any 

 example of S. Dougalli, young or old, in the series of some 

 forty specimens of that bird before us, but as previously 

 stated it is precisely similar to the average bill of Sterna 

 macrura. 



Another point of resemblance to macrura exists in the 

 presence of a few feathers on the under parts, which are 

 tipped with plumbeous, faintly but yet distinctly. These 

 feathers are somewhat isolated and give the plumage a soiled 

 appearance. 



Again the Massachusetts specimen of Portlandica was 

 taken on a portion of Muskegat Island, where the Arctic 



*The italics are our own. 



