RTJPEELl/s TERN. 
267 
third of an inch of the bill ; space between the termination of the 
black plumage and the bill, pure white. The specimen is evi- 
dently adult. 
“ On visiting the collection of birds in the British Museum— 
where the utmost facility for reference and comparison has always 
been most kindly afforded me by George B. Gray, Esq. — I saw 
the same tern labelled f Sterna velox, Buppell, Bed Sea/ It was 
from this locality that Buppell had the species, which is figured 
in his 'Atlas/ pi. 13 (1826). The Sterna cristata described 
by Swainspn in his 'Birds of Western Africa/ p. 247, pi. 30, 
agrees in all details with my notes of S. velox , except in the 
colour of the back, which is said to be almost as white as the 
under parts ” 
Different statements having been made in Dublin respecting 
this bird being killed there, I have made further inquiries on the 
subject since the preceding was published. Mr. Watters assures 
me that he not only saw the fresh skin, but that he pulled away 
the flesh, himself, while quite red and recent, from the tibial and 
humeral bones, and extracted the tongue and part of the skull. 
I have also been favoured by Mr. Lynch of Cork-street, Dublin, 
with a note, stating that he shot the bird at a marshy pool near 
Kilbarrack (and Sutton), on the borders of the bay; he was not 
aware of its rarity, and by mere chance it was not thrown away. 
It seems strange that this tern is not given a regular place in 
either of the late published works — SchlegeFs ' Bevue Critique 
des Oiseaux d'Europe/ or Degland's ' Ornithologie Europeenne/ 
although it is mentioned in both, on the authority of the Prince 
of Canino (at p. 115 in the former, and vol. ii. p. 335 in the 
latter). I have not seen what was published by the Prince of 
Canino on the subject, but when commenting on my paper read 
before the British Association at Oxford, in which a notice of 
S. velox was contained, he mentioned it as a bird of the eastern 
Mediterranean, and, so far as he was informed, not found west- 
ward of Sicily. 
To myself, the occurrence of S. velox in Ireland seems not much 
