368 
GREAT TERN. 
GREAT TERN. — STERNA HIRUNDO. 
Plate LX. Fig. 1. 
Arct. Zool. p. 524, No. 448. — Le pierre garin, ou grande Hirondelle de mer, Buff. 
viii. 331, PI. enl. 987. — Bewick, ii. 181.' — Beale's Musclrn, No. 3485. 
STERNA WILSONII. — Bonaparte. * 
Sterna hirundo, Bonap. Synop. p. 354. — St. Wilsonii, Bonap. Osserv. Sulla, 
2d edit. Bel JRegn. Anim. Cuv. p. 135. 
This bird belongs to a tribe very generally dispersed over 
the shores of the ocean. Their generic characters are these : — 
Bill, straight, sharp pointed, a little compressed, and strong ; 
nostrils, linear; tongue, slender, pointed; legs, short; feet, 
webbed ; hind toe and its nail, straight ; wings, long ; tail, 
generally forked. Turton enumerates twenty-five species of 
this genus, scattered over various quarters of the world ; six 
of which, at least, are natives of the United States. From 
their long pointed wings, they are generally known to sea- 
faring people, and others residing near the sea shore, by the 
name of Sea Swallows; though some few, from their near 
resemblance, are confounded with the Gulls. 
The present species, or Great Tern, is common to the 
shores of Europe, Asia, and America. It arrives on the coast 
of New Jersey about the middle or 20th of April, led, no 
doubt, by the multitudes of fish which at that season visit our 
shallow bays and inlets. By many it is called the Sheep’s- 
head Gull, from arriving about the same time with the fish 
of that name. 
About the middle or 20th of May, this bird commences 
* Mr Ord, in his reprint, and C. L. Bonaparte, when writing his Synopsis 
and Observations on the Nomenclature of Wilson, considered this bird as 
identical with the St. hirundo of Europe. Later comparisons by the Prince 
have induced him to consider it distinct, and peculiar to America, and he has 
dedicated it to Wilson. That gentleman mentions, as North American, in 
addition to the list by Wilson, St. cyanea, Lath. ; St. arctica, Temm. ; St. 
stolida , Linn.. — Ed. 
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