307 
THE WHITE-WINGED BLACK TEEN. 
Sterna leucoptera , Meissner and Scliinz. 
Has twice been obtained. 
An adult specimen preserved in the museum of the Dublin 
Natural History Society, was described by Mr. M‘Coy, in the 
‘ Annals of Natural History/ vol. xv. p. 271. It was there 
stated to have been shot on the Shannon, by John Hill, Esq. ; 
but this gentleman mentioned, in a letter addressed to the editor 
of f Saunders's Newsletter' (April 14, 1847), that he killed the 
bird on the river Liffey, near the Pigeon-house Port, Dublin Bay ; 
— in Oct. 1841. This was the first individual recorded as 
occurring in the British Islands. I have seen a second specimen 
of this handsome but singularly-coloured tern, which is believed 
to have been obtained in Dublin Bay, by the late Mr. Massey, of 
the Pigeon-house Eort there. The birds of his collection were 
almost wholly killed by himself in that bay, and, after his de- 
cease, the one in question came, along with others, into Mr. 
Watters's possession. 
The Sterna leucoptera is a regular summer visitant to southern 
Europe, inclusive of Switzerland and the south of France, and 
occasionally appears in more northern countries, having even been 
met with in Scandinavia. Mr. Yarrell, in 1845, remarked that 
it had not been found in the north of France. In the scientific 
journal termed f L'Institut ' of the following year, however 
(1846, No. 658, p. 273), it was announced as having been 
procured there, but no locality or date was named. In the same 
paragraph it was said that an adult male in perfect summer 
plumage was shot on the 20th May, 1843, in the marshes of 
“ d'Herinnes, sur les bords de l'Escaut, en aval de Tournay," 
in Belgium. It ranges westward in the Mediterranean to Gibraltar, 
and inhabits northern Africa. 
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