Arctic Tern. 527 



and with which it is doubtless often confounded. It is only to 

 be distinguished from 8. hirundo by its shorter and deeper- 

 coloured beak and by the darker under plumage, which is of a 

 light gray colour. It is most probable, therefore, that several of 

 the instances recorded above really belonged to this species. 

 Without doubt it must be a frequent visitor in Wiltshire, and 

 Yarrell mentions Devizes as one of the places visited by con- 

 siderable numbers in the strange irruption of these birds in 1842, 

 as recorded by Mr. Strickland in the ' Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History ' for that year. Beyond this notice I have other 

 evidence of its occurrence in our county : first, in a note from 

 Mr. Elgar Sloper, who informs me that three were brought to 

 him which had been killed on the Kennet and Avon Canal, near 

 Devizes, after a gale from the west in October, 1844; and 

 secondly, from the Rev. G. Powell, who wrote me word on 

 September 28, 1870, that an Arctic Tern was killed by Mr. 

 Charles Phipps at Charlcote a few days previously. The Marl- 

 borough College Natural History Reports speak of one found on 

 the Canal at Savernake in 1867, and another in 1881 on the 

 Canal at Wootton Rivers ; and Mr. Grant received one from Mr. 

 T. Kemm, of Avebury, in October, 1875. As its name implies, 

 it frequents high northern latitudes. Reinhardt found it breed- 

 ing in Greenland ; and Professor Newton records that it breeds 

 in numbers in Spitzbergen, where it feeds principally on surface- 

 swimming animals, crustaceans, mollusca, and the like,* and it 

 has been noticed in still more northern regions by Arctic 

 voyagers. But S. arctica, which certainly, more than either of 

 its congeners, is found in polar regions, has been of late deprived 

 of its title by some modern ornithologists, and designated 

 macrura, with the meaning of ' long-tailed,' from pa/epos and 

 ovpd ; while in Norway it is Rod-ndbbad-Tdrna, or ' Red-billed 

 Tern,' neither of which appear to me to distinguish it sufficiently 

 from its fellows. In France it is Hirondelle-de-mer arctique. 

 The flight of this and all the other Terns is exceedingly graceful, 

 and Harting calls attention to the very interesting sight of a 

 Ibis for 1865, p. 215. 



