56 THE TERNS 



washed with brown and with broad coffee-brown margins to the interscapulars and 

 scapulars. Marginal wing-coverts black white along the free edge of the anterior 

 border the rest of the coverts and quills dark grey. The forehead is white, 

 washed with rust colour, crown and sides of the head slaty black with a tinge of 

 brown ; the hind-neck is grey, the sides of the neck white, washed with rust colour, 

 the rest of the under parts being white, save the anterior flank-feathers which 

 are slate-grey. The young in down is of a rich buff above, with broad conspicuous 

 black markings representing disintegrated median and lateral longitudinal stripes. 

 The pattern on the head forms a more or less complete black ring on the crown, a 

 longitudinal stripe on the nape, bounded on either side by two black spots. The 

 fore-neck is white washed with brown, and the breast and abdomen are dull 

 white, [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. Though formerly a common summer resident in the Fens 

 and the Norfolk Broads, and reported as having bred in the Solway marshes, the 

 black-tern has not been known to breed in England since 1858, when a pair nested 

 at Sutton in Norfolk. At the present time the breeding range of this species on 

 the Continent extends to Southern Sweden (north to Upland), the islands of Oland 

 and Gotland in the Baltic, and Russia up to lat. 61 on the west side and 58 on the 

 east. From these limits it is fairly general in marshy districts southward over the 

 rest of the Continent, though very local in France, breeding in some numbers in 

 Southern Spain, but only found in the marshes of Northern Italy, and absent from 

 the south of the Balkan Peninsula. It does not breed in the Mediterranean islands, 

 except in the Balearic Isles, and there is no reliable evidence of its nesting in North 

 Africa at the present time, while in. Asia it visits Western Siberia and is found east 

 to about 85 long., but not farther south than the shores of the Caspian. Its winter 

 quarters lie in tropical Africa on the west side Gambia, Liberia, Fanteeland, 

 Kamerun, the Congo district, and Angola, on the east side it migrates through 

 Egypt and Nubia to Kordofan, Abyssinia, British and German East Africa. In 

 North America it is replaced by a closely allied form, H. nigra surinamensis, 

 whose winter quarters extend southward to Chile and Peru. [F. c. E. J.] 



3. Migration. A bird of passage, presumably on its way from it winter 

 quarters to the Baltic countries ; formerly also a summer visitor and a British 

 breeding bird. In April and May it occurs in small numbers ori the south coast 

 of England and on the east coast south of the Humber ; records from other parts 

 are exceptional. It is also a casual visitor during the summer months, presum- 

 ably from Holland. In August and September a more noticeable passage occurs, 



