692 A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Incubation. — Shared by sexes (Jaekel), but period not ascertained. 

 Single brooded. 



Food. — British specimen contained 20 larvae of broad-bodied 

 dragon-fly (L. depressa). Also known to take coleoptera (water- 

 beetles) : odonata and larvae, Notonecta glauca and orthoptera 

 (grasshoppers, etc.). Naumann records small fish, tadpoles, and 

 often small frogs (Rana esculenta), but worms only occasionally ; 

 Saunders also includes newts. 



Distribution. — British Isles. — Very rare vagrant. England. — 

 Fourteen. One Dorset, Aug., 1836. One Yorks., 1842. Two 

 Norfolk, June, 1847, and Oct., 1890. One Scilly Isles, Aug., 1851. 

 One Devon, May, 1865. One Hants., June, 1875. Four Sussex, 

 Aug. 9, 1905. One Kent, same date. One (seen) Suffolk, Sept. 16-17, 

 1910. One (seen) Cheshire. July 8-12, 1922. Scotland.— One, 

 Nithsdale (Dumfries), May 28, 1894. Ireland.— One, Dublin Bay, 

 Sept., 1839. 



Distribution. — Abroad. — Nests in south Europe as far north as 

 south Hungary, formerly in Bavaria, also regularly in North Africa. 

 Winters in Africa. Casual northern Russia (Pskoff ), north Germany, 

 once Barbados. Represented by closely allied forms in India, China 

 (difference from Indian form, however, requires confirmation), 

 Celebes to New Guinea, and Australia, and S. Africa. 



CHLIDONIAS LEUCOPTERUS * 



435. Chlidonias leucopterus (Temm.) — THE WHITE- WINGED 

 BLACK TERN. 



Sterna lettcoptera Temminck, Man. d'Orn., p. 483 (1815 — Shores of 



the Mediterranean, Swiss lakes, etc.). 



Hydrochelidon leucoptera (Schinz), Yarrell, in, p. 522 ; Saunders, p. 635. 



Description. — Adult male and female. Winter. — Fore-head and 

 fore -part of crown white ; rest of crown and nape streaked grey- 

 black and white, each feather being blackish-grey with white 

 edgings ; back of lower -neck white ; upper-mantle dark slate-grey, 

 feathers very narrowly edged whitish ; rest of upper -parts pale 

 slate -grey, feathers edged ash-grey ; in front of eye small black 

 spot ; ear-coverts blackish ; lores, rest of sides of head and whole 

 under -parts including axillaries and under wing-coverts white ; 

 tail-feathers pale slate-grey as upper -parts, outer webs of outer 

 feathers whitish as are inner w T ebs of rest ; primaries : outer webs 

 and tips pearl-grey (becoming dark brown by wear especially on 

 outer feathers), inner webs darker but basal inner part white 

 extending towards tip in wedge -shape, shafts white or whitish ; 

 secondaries : outer pearl-grey narrowly edged whitish, inner dark 



* Though Temminck' s Man. d'Orn. and Meisner and Schinz' s Vog. d. 

 Schiveiz bear the same date, 1815, Temminck's work appeared before that of 

 Meisner and Schinz, as is clear from p. 265 of the latter volume. — E.H. 



