MARSH TERN. 
159 
The female, as to plumage, differs iu nothing from the male. 
The yearling birds, several of which I met with, have the plumage 
of the crown white at the surface, but dusky below' ; so that the 
boundaries of the black, as it will be in the perfect bird, arc clearly 
defined ; through the eye a line of black passes down the neck for 
about an inch, reaching about a quarter of an inch before it ; the 
bill is not so black as in the others ; the legs and feet dull orange, 
smutted with brown or dusky ; tips and edges of the pi’imarics 
blackish ; shafts white. 
This species breeds in the salt marshes, the female drops her 
eggs, generally three or four in number, on the dry drift grass, 
without the slightest appearance of a nest ; they arc of a greenish 
olive, spotted with brown. 
A specimen of this Tern has been deposited in the Museum 
of this city. 
M. Temminck having referred this species to the Gull-billed 
Tei’n, S, Jlnglica, of Montagu, the Editor w^as induced to inquire at 
Peale’s Museum for the specimen mentioned above, but he had the 
mortification to learn that it was not to be found. Rut having been 
more fortunate in obtaining access to the original sketch of the 
Marsh Tern, of the size of nature, he will give his reasons for dis- 
senting from the judgment of M. Temminck. Montagu says tliat 
the Jl7igUcah bill is not above an inch and a half long; now the 
bill of our drawing is an inch and seven eighths to the corner of the 
mouth, and a full inch and a quarter to the plumage of the fore- 
head, consequently of a medium length. As the latter dcsci'ibes 
the bill of his, so is that of ours, thick, strong, and angulated on 
the under mandible, like that of a Gull. Temminck gives the 
length of the tarsus of the Jlnglica as one inch three or four lines ; 
the tarsus of our drawing is one inch and an eighth, English ; 
Montagu states that the legs of his Tern rather exceed two inches 
in length from the heel to the knee. If these admeasurements of 
