File:Hand-book to the birds of Great Britain (1894) (14748313152).jpg

Identifier: handbooktobirdso04shar (find matches)
Title: Hand-book to the birds of Great Britain
Year: 1894 (1890s)
Authors: Sharpe, Richard Bowdler, 1847-1909
Subjects: Birds -- Great Britain
Publisher: London, Allen
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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is often foundfloating on the surface of the water. In Southern Spain,where large colonies of the Whiskered Tern are met with.Major Willoughby Verner visited a breeding-colony of thesebirds at La Janda, on the yth of May, 1875, and foundseveral hundred nests floating on the top of the water; theywere simple platforms of reeds and rushes, and were kept fromdrifting to some extent by the young rushes growing up in thewater. Only two nests contained a single egg. Five dayslater over thirty nests contained eggs. In the interval betweenthe visits a strong wind had arisen, and had blown away manyof the Terns nests along the water, till they were packed in adense mass on the lee side of the Laguna.* Eg-gs.—Three in number. Prevailing ground-colour green-ish-grey, sometimes clay-colour, the markings of the eggsbeing similar in character to those of the allied Terns, butrather more scattered and distinct, while in some examples the * Irby, Orn. Straits Gibraltar, 2nd ed., p. 293. , I hw^j¥
Text Appearing After Image:
If-. WHITE-WINGED BLACK TERN. 9 spotting and scribbling is very minute, and the underlyinggrey spots are more distinct than in eggs of H. kiicoptera.Axis, i*4-i7 inch; diam., \\-\2. III. THE WHITE-WINGED BLACK TERN. HYDROCHELIDONLEUCOPTERA. Stenia leucoptera^ Meisner & Schinz, Vog. Schweiz, p. 264 (1815); Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 257 (1885).HydrochcUdon hucoptera, Macgill. Brit. B. v. p. 661 (1852); Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 321, pis. 590, 591 (1875); B. O.U. List Brit. B. p 185 (1883); Saunders, cd. Yanells Brit. B. iii. p. 552 (1884); id. Man. Brit. B. p. 619 (1889) ; Liiford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxix. (1894); Saunders, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxv. p. 6 (1896). (Plate XCV.) Adult Male.—General colour above dark slate-colour; headand neck black, this colour overspreading the mantle; lowerback, rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail pure white; lessercoverts round the bend of the wing white, the rest of thewing-coverts pearly-grey, the innermost greater coverts ratherdarker an

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