560 BIRDS — LARID^. 



fish among the Muskegat ' tide-rips ' ; and troops of Snow-Buntings whirl over the bleak 

 aand-hills." 



Sterna forstebi Nutt. 



B'orster's Tern. 



Sterna forsUH, Whbaton, Food ot Birds, etc., Ohio Agrio. Rep. for 1874, 515 ; Reprint, 

 1875, 15.— Langdon, Cat. Birds of Cin,, 1877, 18 ; Revised List, Joum. Cin. Soc. Nat. 

 Hist., i, 1879, 187; Repriat, 21.— DuRY and Fkbkmajst, ib., iii, 1880, 104; Reprint, 

 5. 



Sterna forsteri, Nuttall, Man., ii, 1834, 274. 



Like the last ; larger, tail longer than ■wings. - Wing of adult, 9i-10J ; tail, 6^-8, thus 

 often beyond the extreme of fluviatilis, and nearly as in maorura ; bill, If (li-lf), and 

 abont 2-5 deep at base fin fluviatilis rarely if e^er so deep) ; tarsus seldom down to i ; 

 whole foot, about 2. Little or no plambeous wash below ; inner web of the outer tail 

 feather darker than outer web of the same. Young and winter birds may be distin- 

 guished from fluviaUlia at gunshot range ; the black cap is almost entirely wanting, and 

 in its place is a broad black band on each side of the head through the eye ; several 

 lateral tail feathers are largely dusky on the inner webs ; their outer webs are white. 



Habitat, North America at large. Middle America. South America to BrazU. Only 

 known to breed in the higher latitudes. 



Not very common spring and fall migrant. Not recorded from the 

 lake shore. Mr. Langdon gives it as a rare migrant in the vicinity of 

 Cincinnati, where Messrs. Dury and Freeman note six specimens taken 

 May 4, 1879. My own acquaintance with the bird in this vicinity is 

 limited to a single specimen taken in the fall of 1861 or 1862. Doubtless 

 it has been confounded with other species, as no adequate and generally 

 accessible description of the adult was had until 1858 (Lawrence), or of the 

 young until 1862 (Coues). 



This Tern may possibly breed in Northern Ohio, as it has been dis- 

 •overed breeding in Northern Illinois by Mr. Nelson, who gives the fol- 

 lowing description of its nesting and eggs : 



■' Although I have been aware that S. forsteri nested in this vicinity for several years, 

 it was not until the middle of June, 1876, that I had the pleasure of examining one of 

 their nests. While we were collecting eggs among the wild rice patches, on Grass Lake, 

 June 14th, Mr. Douglas observed a pair of these Terns hovering near a small patch of 

 Saggitaria leaves growing in several feet of water, and rowing to the spot found the 

 uesr, which was a loosely built structure of coarse pieces of reeds resting upon a mass of 

 floating plants and concealed from view by the surrounding leaves. Upon the nest was 

 a single young bird, abont to scramble into the water, but upon seeing Mr. Douglas it 

 oronched to avoid being observed, and was «iptured. A thorough search at the time 

 failed to reveal any other young ones, so the adults, which had been darting and scream- 

 ing about this heap, were secured, with a second pair which had espoused the cause of 

 their companions. Their anxiety we afterwards found to be the proximity of an unfin- 

 ished nest, similarly situated. That evening we found and secured two more young 



