PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 



61 



but in the north often not till the middle of the month. Only one brood is reared 

 in the season. [F. c. R. j.] 



5. Food. Chiefly small fish, aquatic insects, and small crustaceans. In 

 twenty-one stomach contents examined by Rorig were found fish remains, small 

 gnats (Miicken), flies, dragon-flies, and earwigs (Naumann, Vogel Mitteleuropas, xi. 

 133). Earthworms are said to be sometimes taken. The young are fed by both 

 parents, chiefly on small fish. At Ravenglass these were found to be chiefly young 

 herrings, but "many small whiting were found, and also a few young codling, 

 lumpsuckers, and long rough dabs, and, although the colony was bounded on one 

 side by a river famous for its Salmonidce, no trace of the young of these fish was 

 found at all on the ground" (H. W. Robinson and F. W. Smalley, British Birds, iii. 

 169). [F. B. K.] 



ARCTIC-TERN [Sterna paradiscea Briinnich ; 1 Sterna macrura Naumann. 

 Sea-swallow, sparling, skrike (generic), tarrock, piccatarries (Shetlands). 

 French, hirondelle de mer arctique ; German, Kiisten-Seeschwalbe ; Italian, 

 rondine di mare coda lunga]. 



i. Description. The Arctic-tern may readily be distinguished from the 

 common-tern by the uniform blood-red colour of the beak, 

 the dark grey of the under parts, longer tail streamers, 

 the shorter tarso-metatarsus, which does not exceed the 

 length of the middle toe minus the claw, and by the 

 narrower width of the grey band along the shafts of the 

 outer primaries. (See accompanying figure, and also 

 p. 76.) The sexes are alike, and there is a more or less decided seasonal change 

 of coloration. (PL 100.) Length 14-5 in. [368-30 mm.]. 

 The adult, in summer, has the top of the head, from the 

 base of the beak backwards to the nape, black, the rest 

 of the upper parts dark pearl-grey, fading into white on 

 the lower rump and upper tail-coverts. The tail is white, 

 but the feathers have a faint grey tinge on the outer 

 webs, and dark grey outer webs to the outermost elongated feathers or " streamers." 

 The outer web of the outermost primary is blackish, and along the inner side 



1 Brtinnich's name as given above was published in 1764, two years before the issue of the 

 12th edition of Linnseus. It was therefore ignored by Saunders, who made the 12th edition 

 of the Syst. Nat. his starting-point, but must now be adopted in accordance with the rules of 

 the Fifth International Zoological Congress. [F. c. B. j.] 



1. COMMON-TBRN'S PRIMARY. 





2. ARCTIC- TERN'S PRIMARY. 



