The Sandwich Tern, S. sandvicensis or £ cantiaca— named from the place of its discovery, though it has long since ceased to inhabit that neighbourhood—is the largest of the British species, equalling in size the smaller Gulls and having a dark-coloured bill tipped with yellow, and dark legs. Through persecution it has been exterminated in all its southern haunts, and is become much scarcer in those to which it still resorts. It was, however, never so abundant as its smaller congeners, the so-called Common and the Arctic Tern, —two species that are so nearly alike as to be beyond discrimination on the wing by an ordinary observer, and even in the hand require a somewhat close examination. The former of these has the more southern range, and often affects inland situations, while the latter, though by no means limited to the Arctic circle, is widely distributed over the north and mostly resorts to the seacoast. Yet there are localities where, as on the Farne Islands, both meet and breed, without occupying stations apart. The minute diagnosis of these two species cannot be briefly given. It must suffice here to state that the most certain difference, as it is the most easily recognizable, is to be found in the tarsus, which in the Arctic Tem is a quarter of an inch shorter than in its kinsman. The remaining native species is the Lesser Tern, S. minuta, one of the smallest of the genus and readily to be distinguished by its permanently white forehead. All the species already mentioned, except the Black Tern, have much the same general coloration— the adults in summer plumage wearing a black cap and having the upper parts of the body and wings of a more or less pale grey, while they are mostly lighter beneath. They generally breed in association, often in the closest proximity—their nests, containing 3 eggs at most, being made on the shingle or among herbage. The young are hatched clothed in variegated down, and remain in the nest for some time. At this season the parents are almost regardless of human presence and expose themselves freely.

At least half-a-dozen other species have been recorded as occurring in British waters, and among them the Caspian Tern, S. caspia t which is one of the largest of the genus and of wide distribution, though not breeding nearer to the shores of England than on Sylt and its neighbouring islands, which still afford lodging for a few pairs. Another, the Gull-billed Tern, S. anglica, has also been not unfrequently shot in England. All these species are now recognized, though the contrary was once maintained, as inhabitants of North America, and many go much further.

An excellent synopsis of the Sub-family Sterninae has been given by Mr Howard Saunders in the Zoological Proceedings (1876, pp. 638-672). He recognizes 5 genera, —Hydrochelidon (with 3 species), Sterna (with 38), Naenia, a very aberrant form consisting of but one species, the Inca Tern, peculiar to the western coast of South America, and Gygis, composed of 2 species of purely white birds and restricted to the southern hemisphere; his fifth genus is Anous, to which belong the various species of Noddy (vol. xvii. p. 531). Often confounded with these last are the two species called in books Sooty Terns (N. fuliginosa and S. anaestheta), but by sailors “Egg-birds” or “Wideawakes” from their cry. These crowd at certain seasons in innumerable multitude to certain islands within the tropics, where they breed, and the wonderful assemblage at present known as “Wide-awake fair” on the island of Ascension has been more or less fully described from very ancient times. Dampier in his voyage to New Holland in 1699 particularly described and figured the Sooty Tern ( Voyages, iii. p. 142), discriminating it from the Noddy, from, which it had not before been distinguished. (a. n.)

Terni is the ancient Interamna (“inter amnes”), originally belonging to Umbria and founded, according to a local tradition, in the year 672 b.c. It early became a flourishing municipium, and it did not permanently suffer through being portioned out among his soldiers by Sulla. Its inhabitants had frequent litigations and disputes with their neighbours at Reate in connexion with the regulation of the Velinus, the waters of which are so strongly impregnated with carbonate of lime that by their deposits they tend to block up their own channel. The first interference with its natural course was that of M ’. Curius Dentatus already referred to. In 54 b.c. the people of Reate appealed to Cicero to plead their cause in an arbitration which had been appointed by the Roman senate to settle disputes about the river, and in connexion with this he made a personal inspection of Lake Velinus and its outlets. In the time of Tiberius there was a project for regulating the river and its outlets from the lake, against which the citizens of Interamna and Reate energetically and successfully protested (Tac., Ann., i. 79). Similar questions arose as the river formed fresh deposits during the Middle Ages and during the 15th and 16th centuries. A branch of the Via Flaminia passed from Narnia to Forum Flaminii, and is given instead of the direct line in the Antonine and Jerusalem itineraries. The emperor Tacitus and his brother Florianus were probably natives of Interamna, which also has been claimed as the birthplace of Tacitus the historian, but with less reason. Terni was the scene of .the defeat of the Neapolitans by the French on 27th November 1798.