THE ROSEATE TERN 



{sterna DOUG ALU) 



rPHE Roseate Tern is another species possess- 

 ing more than ordinary interest to British 

 naturalists, because it was first made known to 

 science by Montagu, who described it and named it 

 after its discoverer, from a skin which had been 

 obtained by Dr. MacDougall of Glasgow on one of 

 the Cumbrae Islands in the Firth of Clyde. The 

 worthy Doctor found this species breeding sparingly 

 in company with a large colony of Common Terns, 

 and furnished Montagu not only with the specimen 

 that he described in the Supplement to his famous 

 Ornithological Dictionary, but with particulars of 

 its habits and characteristics. This was between 

 eighty and ninety years ago. Selby afterwards found 

 it breeding on the Fame Islands, and it was also 

 discovered breeding in various other parts of the 

 British Islands. Its best-known resorts were these 



famous islets oif the Northumbrian coast, but other 



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