MARSH TERN. Gy 
brown, intermixed on the fore part with some small streaks of 
drab; rest of the head and greater part of the neck, pale 
yellow ochre, thickly marked with small streaks of blackish 
brown ; lower part of the neck, and whole lower parts, deep 
dusky, each feather edged with brownish white, and with fine 
seams of rusty white; upper parts of the same, but rather 
deeper ; the outer vanes of nine of the secondaries, bright 
violet blue, forming the beauty-spot, which is bounded on all 
sides by black ; wings and tails, sooty brown; tail-feathers, 
sharp-pointed ; legs and feet, dusky yellow; lining of the 
wings, pure white. 
The female has more brown on her plumage ; but in other 
respects differs little from the male, both having the beauty- 
spot on the wing. 
MARSH TERN. (Sterna aranea.) 
PLATE LXXII.—Fic. 6. 
Peale’s Museum, No. 3521. 
STERNA ARANEA.—Wison.* 
Sterna aranea, Bonap. Synop. p. 354. 
Tis new species I first met with on the shores of Cape May, 
particularly over the salt marshes, and darting down after a 
* The Prince of Musignano writes the following observations in his 
“Nomenclature ;”— 
«A new species of Wilson, referred by Temminck to a bird which he 
calls Sterna Anglica, thinking that it is no other than S. Anglica of 
Montagu. But, as Brehm proves in his late work, the S. Anglica of 
Temminck is not the 8. Anglica of Montagu. To the latter he gives 
the name of 8, risoria (which cannot be adopted), and he calls the 
former S. meridionalis, He does not decide to which of the two species 
the American S. aranea belongs, and expresses the possibility of its 
being an independent species, but seems inclined to believe it identical 
with his §. meridionalis. Whether this bird is the S. Anglica, Mont., 
the S. meridionalis, Brehm, Anglica, Temm., or a distinct species pecu- 
liar to the north and south of this continent, it shall be the object of 
