CASPIAN TERN. 495 



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 Elhe. 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 

 have lately 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 Calcutta. 



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 collection, 

 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 

 rich black, the feathers of that colour on the occiput elon- 



