304 LARTD^. 



England or Scotland. Aberdeen is the most northern breedhig- 

 haunt in Great Britain, named in the works of Macgillivray and 

 Jardine ; but in a more recent publication the species is said to 

 remain in the Orkneys from May until August, and hence we may 

 presume, to increase its numbers there."^ Its not being found in 

 the western hemisphere renders the west of Ireland, within its 

 latitude, the extreme western limit of distribution. 



On the 18th of July, 1841, the little tern came under my 

 notice on the Lake of Constance, and soon after leaving Basle, a 

 few days afterwards, when I was proceeding down the Rhine, 

 numbers of tliis species and the common tern were seen about 

 the river in the very extensive, marshy, and wild sandy tracts 

 bordering which, doubtless, they both bred. 



THE BLACK TERN. 



Sterna 7iigra, Briss. 

 „ fssipes, Linn, 



Is of occasional occurrence, chiefly in autumn, when 

 immature. 



I SHALL notice this species according to dates, instead of localities. 

 It was first recorded as Irish in the Zoological Proceedings for 

 1834 (p. 31), from information supplied to me by Mr, R. Ball, 

 who, in the month of July, for several successive years long before 

 that time,t had observed a number of them to frequent a 

 lake at Roxborough, near Middleton, county Cork. J The late 

 Mr. John Montgomery, of Locust Lodge, Belfast, saw one of 

 these birds in the outer bay of Dundrum (county Down) at the 

 latter end of July or beginning of August 1821; and, on men- 

 tioning the circumstance to me, added, that he had seen a pre- 



* ' Hist. Nat. Oread.' p. 90 (1848). 



t About 1819, since wliich period he has not visited the locality. 



:|: Mr. Yarrell, merely quoting this, remarks, that " the black tern is a summer 

 visitor to the different parts of Ireland" (vol, iii. p. 414) ; which implies too much. 



