THE CASPIAN TERN. 



land ; and off the coast of Brazil a flock of another species, hundred and twenty 

 miles from the nearest part of the coast. The latter birds were in numbers, and 

 were busily engaged in dashing at their prey." 



One of the present writers may perhaps be allowed to quote his own experience 

 on this point, from " A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago," p. 

 12. "On the afternoon of the sixteenth day of weary beating from Aiijer [in 

 West Java], a pure white Tern suddenly appeared, and, circling about the vessel, 

 produced quite a nutter of excitement. It was the lovely Gygis Candida, one of 

 the Keeling Island birds, which our native boatswain declared never went far from 

 home, and that, therefore, we must be near our destination. Several of the sailors 

 ran aloft, and in a few minutes descried to the northward the crowns of the higher 

 cocoanut palms on the southern islands. We straightway changed our course, for 

 our skipper had evidently miscalculated our noon position, and, but for this timely 

 pilot, would have sailed past in the night. At sundown the islands appeared from 

 the deck as a dark uneven line, rising little above the horizon ; at ten o'clock we 

 sailed into the anchorage." 



Family LARID&. Subfamily S TERNINsE. 



CASPIAN TERN. 



Hydroprogne caspia, PALL. 



THIS bird was first discovered about hundred and twenty-eight years ago, on 

 the margin of the Caspian Sea, and derives its name, therefore, from the 

 locality in which it was first captured. More than a dozen specimens have been 

 killed in England, the majority of them on the south and south-east coast ; it has 

 been recorded also from Yorkshire and from as far north as the Fame Islands. 

 It has not been detected in Ireland or Scotland. 



