Black Tern. 529 



a personal interview with one, for while he was rowing on the 

 river at Downton one of these birds, in adult plumage, flew 

 round and round the boat, coming so close to him that he had a 

 perfect view of it. The Marlborough College Natural History 

 Eeports mention, on the authority of Mr. Dixon, of Pewsey, that 

 a specimen was shot at that place on May 18, 1876, and two 

 others in the middle of May, 1880, the one at Hungerford, the 

 other at Ramsbury. Mr. Grant reports one killed at Fyfield by 

 Mr. Lavington in May, 1876, and Mr. Rawlence one killed at 

 Wishford. In France it is known as Hirondelle de mer 

 epouvantail, ' Scarecrow,' or ' Bugbear Sea Swallow,' probably 

 from some superstitious terror on account of its sombre dress ; 

 but in prosaic Germany it is Schviarzgraue Meerschwalbe ; in 

 Sweden, Svart Tdrna; in Italy, Sterna Cenerina o di testa nera; 

 and in Spain, Fumarel. Modern systematists have removed this 

 species from the true Terns, and relegated it to a small group 

 of 'Marsh Terns,' and inflicted on it the tremendous name of 

 Hydrochelidon, or ' Water Swallow.' The specific name, fissipes, 

 arises from the fact that the membranes which connect the 

 three toes in. front are short and deeply scalloped a distinctive 

 mark recognised by the fishermen, who in some parts call it 

 provincially ' Cloven-foot Gull.' Formerly, before the fens and 

 marshes of the eastern counties were drained, it used to breed 

 in great numbers in Norfolk and Lincolnshire ; in the former it 

 was known as the ' Blue Darr/and in the latter as ' Car Swallow/ 

 Selby compares its flight, which is peculiarly buoyant, to that 

 of the Nightjar ; and Montagu described how it escaped from the 

 repeated pounces of a Peregrine Falcon by means of the rapidity 

 of its flight and the dexterity and singular quickness of its 

 manoauvres. 



223. LITTLE GULL (Larus minutus). 



The Gulls differ from the Terns in their more sturdy and less 

 elegant shape, in their stronger, shorter beak with curved tip, in 

 their longer and stouter legs, and in the partial or total absence 

 of fork in the tail. They seem equally at rest, whether floating 



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