BIRDS OF NEW YORK I37 



bottom of the hood are well shown by the figure on plate 6. Immature 

 birds have no hood or collar; upper parts slaty gray waved and tipped 

 with brownish white ; under parts white ; tail white with a black bar one 

 inch wide in the middle, narrowing toward the edges. Adult birds in slim- 

 mer have a black bill, yellowish toward the tip, black feet, dark brown 

 iris, vermilion mouth and eyelids. 



Length 13-14 inches; wing 10-11.25; tail 4.5-5; forked .7-1.25; bill i; 

 depth of bill at angle .3; tarsus 1.25; middle toe and claw 1.25. 



This beautiful arctic species is a rare visitant in this State. It is 

 barely mentioned by DeKay and Lawrence, evidently on the authority 

 of a specimen killed at Raynor South, L. I., in July 1837, and reported in 

 Giraud's Birds of Long Island, page 363, and Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, 

 Water Birds, volume 2, page 272. A second specimen from the State was 

 reported, by Worthington in Auk, voliome 17, page 63. It was an immature 

 female and was killed in Gardiners bay, on October 6th, 1899. Its stomach 

 contained a cutworm and the remains of other insects. The only specimen 

 known from the interior of the State is an adult bird in summer plumage, 

 taken on the Montezuma marshes, in Seneca county about the year 1887, by 

 Foster Parker of Cayuga, and now in the author's collection. 



Gelochelidon nilotica (Hasselquist) 

 Gull-billed Tern 



Plate 7 



Sterna nilotica Hasselquist. Reise nach Pal. Deutsche Ausg. 1762. p. 325 

 Sterna anglica DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 301, fig. 279 

 Gelochelidon nilotica A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 63 



gelocheli'don, Gr. ye^ws, laughter; ;^eXt8(ov, a swallow; nilo'tica, of the Nile 



Description. Adult in summer: Crown and occipital crest greenish 

 black; neck, tail and under parts white; mantle, rump, and middle tail 

 feathers pale pearl -gray; primaries dusky grayish, the first silvered on the 

 outer web, the shafts of all yellowish, and their inner webs with white 

 spaces, largest on the first, diminishing to the last; bill and feet black; the 

 bill heavy and somewhat curved over at the tip. In winter: Similar, but 

 the head white with a grayish spot before the eye and over the ear. 



Length 13-15 inches; extent 33-37; wing 11. 75-12. 25; tail 5.5, forked 

 1. 2-1. 75; bill 1.4; depth of bill at base .45; gape 2; tarsus 1.3; middle toe 

 and claw i.i. 



