CASPIAN TERN. 499 



An example was killed in Norfolk, in June, 1849, an- 

 other in August, 1851, and one in Lincolnshire, in 1853 V 



The Caspian Tern is reported to breed annually at Sylt, 

 an island of Denmark, on the west coast of Jutland. M. 

 Nilsson says it visits also the mouth of the Baltic, and is 

 seen in the vicinity of the Elbe. It is included by several 

 naturalists in their birds of Germany. M. Temminck men- 

 tions that he has himself killed it, though rarely, on the 

 coast of Holland, and it visits the coasts of France. M. 

 Necker and Professor Schinz include this species among 

 their birds of Switzerland ; the former quoting four in- 

 stances of its capture in the vicinity of Geneva ; the latter 

 calls it the King of the Sea-swallows, in reference to its 

 very large size. M. Temminck says it has been met with 

 and killed on the extensive rocks near Bonifacio, a sea-port 

 of Corsica. M. Savi includes it in his work on the Birds of 

 Italy ; it is rare in Corfu and Sicily : it inhabits the 

 Grecian Archipelago ; and the Russian naturalists who 

 visited the Caucasus found it in the vicinity of the Caspian 

 Sea, where it was originally discovered, and from whence 

 it received its first name from Pallas. The Caspian Tern 

 has been found at Senegal, and at the Cape of Good Hope. 

 Mr. Blyth has obtained examples in the vicinity of Cal- 

 cutta. 



M. Temminck tells us that the Caspian Tern feeds on 

 fish, and lays its two or three eggs in a hole in the sand, 

 or on the bare rocks near the edge of the sea. Eggs of 

 this species obtained from Hamburgh, in my own collec- 

 tion, are two inches six lines in length, by one inch and 

 eight lines in breadth ; of a yellowish stone colour, spotted 

 with ash grey, and dark red brown. 



When in their summer plumage the bill is vermilion red, 

 lightest in colour at the point ; the irides reddish-brown ; 

 forehead, all the top of the head and the nape of the neck 



K K 2 



