= 
78 MARSH TERN. 
kind of large black spider, plenty in such places. This spider 
can travel under water, as well as above, and, during summer 
at least, seems to constitute the principal food of the present 
tern. In several which I opened, the stomach was crammed 
with a mass of these spiders alone; these they frequently pick 
up from the pools, as well as from the grass, dashing down 
on them in the manner of their tribe. Their voice is sharper 
and stronger than that of the common tern; the bill is dif- 
those observations to determine. The specimen deposited by Wilson 
in the Philadelphia Museum (a single glance at which would have 
enabled us to decide the question) being unfortunately destroyed, and 
Wilson’s figure and description being too unessential to justify any con- 
clusion, we should have been obliged to have left the matter unsettled, 
had it not been for the successful zeal of Mr Titian Peale, whose prac- 
tical knowledge (the most important) of North American birds is equalled 
by none. Their favourite haunts, their note, their flight, are perfectly 
familiar to him. He succeeded in procuring a fine specimen at Long 
Beach, N.J., just as we were in want of one, and thus enabled us to 
give with more security the following opinion, which we had previously 
formed :— 
“S. aranea, Wils., was a nondescript, different from S. Anglica, Mont., 
but the same with S. Anglica, Temm., and S. meridionalis, Brehm, and 
therefore common to both continents. Wilson’s name having the 
priority, must be exclusively retained, and Brehm’s name of merv- 
dionalis must be rejected. Thus has our author here also first named 
and described a European bird. 
“Mr Ord was therefore right in not finding himself authorised to 
change the name, He was right in believing Montagu’s bird distinct, 
but wrong in thinking Temminck’s bird different, though Temminck 
had positively stated the specimens he had received from the United 
States and Brazil differed in nothing from his south Europeans. Even 
as respects the discrepance of S, Anglica, Mont., his reasons resting 
upon the slight difference of an unpublished drawing of Wilson respecting 
measurements of parts, to which Wilson did not attach great importance, 
were by no means conclusive. In fact, these measurements are incorrect, 
with the exception of the tarsus, which corresponds within a trifle of the 
bird. The bill is two and one-eighth inches to the corners of the mouth, 
and about one and one-half inches to the feathers of the forehead ; thus 
bearing more in favour of Mr Ord’s argument that it is not the Anglica, 
Mont., than he himself supposed ; but proving that it is no other than 
S. Anglica, Temm, (meridionalis, Brehm), to which, as above stated, 
Wilson’s name of aranea must be exclusively applied. 
