THE ARCTIC TERN. 
297 
arctic tern was shot at Lough Neagh,* when, I presume, on its 
way to some marine breeding-haunt. 
Very rarely, arctic terns — doubtless late birds of the preceding 
year — are shot at the breeding- stations before having attained 
full adult plumage. I have met with two such, killed on the 
13th and 18th of June, in different years, at the Mew Island. 
They had the forehead and fore part of the crown of the head 
pale greyish- white ; feathers of the hinder part of the crown 
white, tipped with black ; back of the head and nape, black ; 
bill, wdiolly black; tarsi and toes appear blackish, but on close 
inspection may be termed dark reddish-purple ;t upper surface of 
webs reddish-purple, under surface vermilion-red, a little clouded 
with dark purple ; tarsal joints and under surface of toes bright 
vermilion-red. These birds differed much in size, one of them 
being the largest of the species that has come under my notice. 
Its length, from the point of the beak to the end of the longest tail- 
feathers, 1 7 inches, being 3 inches longer than several specimens 
of S. arctica killed at the same time ; but this difference was chiefly 
in the superior length of its tail-feathers ; bill 2 inches from rictus 
to point, 1 inch lines from forehead to point ; wing, from carpus 
to end of first quill, 11 inches. The differences between this bird 
and the other arctic terns obtained on the same occasion led me at 
first to consider it a distinct species, and a minute description 
was drawn up from the recent specimen : — this was exhibited at 
a meeting of the Zoological Society of London, and is briefly 
noticed in the “Proceedings ” of that body for 1833, p. 33. 
Although the arctic and common terns may daily appear 
very far up Belfast Bay after the breeding-season, they are com- 
paratively seldom seen previous to that period : a specimen of the 
former, shot near the Long Bridge at Belfast, on the 3rd of May, 
* Rev. George Robinson. 
f It appears singular to me that they should ever assume this dark colour, as 
the tarsi of the young birds shot in the autumn of their first year are of a deep flesh, 
or very pale salmon hue, and I should have expected them, like those of the Larus 
ridibundus, to become gradually of a deeper tint of red, until that of maturity were 
attained. Captain Sabine remarked of arctic terns, shot during Parry’s voyage, that 
the legs were changing from black to red. I have seen this colour only in birds 
when in the next stage to maturity. 
