WHISKEBED TEEN.
HYDRO CHELIDON HYBRID A (Pallas).
Sterna hybrida. Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-As. ii. p. 338 (1811).
Sterna lcucopareia, Naum. x. p. 168 ; Hewitson, ii. p. 483.
Hydrochelidon leucopareia, Macg. v. p. 663.
Hydrochelidon hybrida, Yarr. ed. 4, iii. p. 527 ; Dresser, viii.
p. 315.
Hironclelle de me?' moustac, French j Golondrina de mar,
Charran, Spanish.
This Marsh-Tern is a very rare straggler to our
country. I only find six occurrences recorded by
Mr. Howard Saunders; it is, in fact, a southern
species, and our Islands lie far to the northward of its
habitual range. I became intimately acquainted with
this bird in a certain wild district of Southern Spain,
where we found it in great abundance nesting in
company with the Black Tern and many other birds of
various species, upon some small freshwater lakelets,—I
can hardly call them lakes, and ponds would convey the
idea of human agency in their formation. It was more
than pleasant to lie amongst the rushes on the sandy
banks of these waters in the splendid sunshine of an