254 BRITISH BIRDS. 



i 



STERNA NIGRA. 

 BLACK TERN. 



(PLATE 49.) 



Sterna nigra, Briss. Orn. vi. p. 211, pi. xx. fig. 1 (1760) ; Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 227 

 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum Naumann, Temrninck, Dresser, 

 Sounders, &c. 



Sterna atricapilla, ] 



Sterna neevia, 1 Briss. Orn. vi. pp. 210, 214, 216 (1760). 



Sterna cinerea, ) 



Sterna fissipes, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 228 (1766). 



Larus merulinus, Scop. Ann. I. Hist. Nat. p. 81 (1769). 



Sterna fusca, Tunstall, Orn. Brit. p. 3 (1771). 



Sterna obscura, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 608 (1788). 



Sterna brunnea, Forster, Syn. Cat. Br. B. p. 63 (1817). 



Hydrochelidon nigra (Linn.}, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 563. 



Viralva nigra (Linn.), Steph. Share's Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. i. p. 167 (1825). 



Hydrochelidon fissipes (Linn.), Gray, Gen. B. iii. p. 660 (1846). 



Hydrochelidon lariformis, Coues, Birds of N.-W. p. 704(1874). 



The pretty little Black Tern is now, alas, only a visitor to the British 

 Islands during spring and autumn migration. Half a century ago it bred 

 every season in considerable numbers on Romney Marsh in Kent, on many 

 of the Norfolk broads, and in some of the Lincolnshire fens. It is not 

 known to have remained to build its nest in this country for the last five- 

 and-twenty years; incessant persecution combined with the drainage of 

 marshes has driven it away, though it still passes our coasts on its way to 

 and from Denmark and Sweden. It is most abundant in the southern and 

 eastern counties of England, but is much rarer in Scotland, though it has 

 once been seen as far north as the Shetland Islands. To Ireland it is only 

 an accidental visitor on migration. 



Fortunately the Black Tern breeds in enormous numbers in various 

 parts of the continent. It is found on both coasts of the Atlantic, but must 

 be regarded as an inland species, whose geographical distribution ranges 

 somewhat further to the north, and much further to the west, than that 

 of its allies. Its most northerly known breeding-ground is in Esthonia, 

 on the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland. Thence its breeding-range 

 extends through South Sweden and Norway, Denmark, Holland, France, 

 and Spain, to Algeria in the west, and through the province of Kasan and 

 South-west Siberia to Turkestan and the Altai Mountains in the east. It 

 breeds in suitable localities in the basin of the Mediterranean, except in 

 Egypt. So far as is known, all the Black Terns in the eastern hemisphere 

 from Spain to the Altai Mountains winter in North Africa ; but a single 



