LONG-LEGGED TERN. 
Mr. Tom Carter says : “ The only occasion on which this interesting 
species came under my observation was in May, 1900, when about five pairs 
of birds were seen on the flooded salt marsh at Maud’s Landing near Point 
Cloates, North-west Australia. Two nests each containing one egg, were found 
by me on one of the low islands on the marsh. Of nesting material there was 
hardly any, the eggs being laid in slight hollows. I shot two of the birds, as 
they hovered above me. Upon skinning them, I found that one had been 
feeding almost exclusively on grasshoppers, and the other bird on small 
lizards.” 
The male figured and described (in full breeding-plumage) is one of the 
birds mentioned by Mr. Carter ; the one in winter-plumage is also a male, 
and was collected by Stalker at Inkerman, Queensland, on April 28th, 1907. 
Known as Sterna or Gelochelidon anglica, it has now been accepted that 
the earliest-known name for the species is Sterna nilotica Gmelin, whose name 
is based upon Hasselquist’s description, thus : — 
Syst. Nat., p. 606, 1789. 
St. supra cinerea, subtus alba, capite coUoque nigro-maculatis, orbitis nigris albo 
guttatis. Hasselq. it., p. 273, n. 41. 
Egyptian Tern. Lath. syn. 2, p. 656, n. 8. 
Habitat in Aegypto, gregaria, frequens cum aliis, in limo, quern Nilus retrocedens 
relinquit, infectis et piscibus minoribus victitans, columbse magnitudinae Rostrum et 
ungues nigri ; pedes incamati. 
Latham’s “ Egyptian Tern ” also depends entirely upon Hasselquist’s 
account, and that is so clear that there can be no excuse for the rejection of 
Gmelin’s name ; consequently all accurate workers have now adopted it. 
Saunders, in the Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. XXV., p. 25, 1896, recognised 
the species as having generic characters in itself, but admitted no subspecies. 
Without much care for priority he accepted Montagu’s name for the species, 
calling it Gelochelidon anglica (Montagu, Suppl. Ornith. Diet., 1813, pi. 21). 
In the recent third edition of the A.O.U. Checklist, p. 40, 1910, I find 
the following : — 
Oelochelidon nilotica — ^The Gull-billed Tern. 
“ Range.” Nearly cosmopolitan. Breeds in North America on coasts of Texas, 
Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia (formerly to New Jersey) and in the Bahamas ; wanders 
casually to Maine and Ohio ; winters in southern Mexico, southern Guatemala, and from 
Brazil south to Patagonia and Chile. Breeds also in Europe, Asia, and Australia, and 
winters south to northern Africa. 
This seems to imply that it is only a winter-visitor to South America, 
which is incorrect. Moreover, as subspecies are recognised it would have been 
better to have noted that distinct races were known, as five years previously 
Hartert {Nov. Zool., Vol. XII., p. 199, 1905) had shown that the Australian 
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