uuppell's tern. 267 



third of an inch of the bill ; space between the termination of the 

 black plumage and the bill, pure white. The specimen is evi- 

 dently adult. 



" On visiting the collection of birds in the British Museum — 

 where the utmost facility for reference and comparison has always 

 been most kindly afforded me by George R. Gray, Esq. — I saw 

 the same tern labelled ' Sterna velox, Ruppell, Eed Sca.^ It was 

 from this locality that Ruppell had the species, w^hich is figured 

 in his 'Atlas/ pi. 13 (1826). The Sterna cristata described 

 by Swainson in his ' Birds of Western Africa/ p. 247, pi. 30, 

 agrees in all details with my notes of S. velox, except in the 

 colour of the back^ which is said to be almost as white as the 

 under parts." 



Different statements having been made in Dublin respecting 

 this bird being killed there, I have made further inquiries on the 

 subject since the preceding was published. Mr, Wattcrs assures 

 me that he not only saw the fresh skin, but that he pulled away 

 the flesh, himself^ while quite red and recent, from the tibial and 

 humeral bones, and extracted the tongue and part of the skull. 

 I have also been favoured by Mr. Lynch of Cork-street, Dublin, 

 with a note, stating that he shot the bird at a marshy pool near 

 Kilbarrack (and Sutton), on tlie borders of the bay; life was not 

 aware of its rarity, and by mere chance it was not thrown away. 



It seems strange that this tern is not given a regular place in 

 either of the late published works — Scldegel's ' Eevue Critique 

 des Oiseaux d^Europe,' or Degland^s ' Ornithologie Europcenne,' 

 although it is mentioned in both, on the authority of the Prince 

 of Canino (at p. 113 in the former, and vol. ii. p. 335 in the 

 latter). I have not seen what was published by the Prince of 

 Canino on the subject, but when commenting on my paper read 

 before the British Association at Oxforcl, in which a notice of 

 S. velox was contained, he mentioned it as a bird of the eastern 

 Mediterranean, and, so far as he was informed, not found west- 

 ward of Sicily. 



To myself, the occurrence of S. velox in Ireland seems not much 



