egg-bird

English

Noun

egg-bird (plural egg-birds)

1. (dated) Any of several species of tern, especially:
   1. The white-fronted tern (Sterna striata).
      • 1967 [1777], [William Anderson], “Appendix I: Anderson’s Journal”, in J. C. Beaglehole, editor, The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery (Hakluyt Society Extra Series; 36), volumes III: The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery, 1776–1780. Part Two, London, New York: Cambridge University Press, page 819:

        Saw some Albatrosses and petrels, and in the evening an Egg bird or Tern which lighted on the ship was caught but differ’d from all any of us had seen before. It was about the size of the common Tern or sea swallow with the head, back and coverts of the wings finely variegated with black and white, the rest of the body being nearly white and the Bill and feet black.

   2. The sooty tern (Onychoprion fuscatus) of the West Indies.
   3. (Bahamas) The white-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus).

References

• “egg-bird”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.