3o6 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Family LARID/E. ' . Genus Sterna. 



Sub-family STERNINM. 



ARCTIC TERN. 



Sterna arctica, Temminck. 

 Single Brooded. Laying season, June. 



British breeding area : The Arctic Tern is a 

 common and widely distributed species, especially in 

 the northern portions of our area, where it replaces the 

 preceding bird in many localities, or far exceeds it in 

 numbers. It breeds locally and in most cases sparingly 

 round the English coast-line, from the Fame Islands 

 to the sand-banks near the Spurn. No other stations 

 are known until we reach the Scilly Islands ; thence 

 northwards a few pairs breed on the Welsh coast, and 

 possibly on Walney, off the Lancashire coast. In Scot- 

 land it is generally distributed round the coast in places 

 suited to its requirements, including the Orkneys, the 

 Shetlands, and the Hebrides. Its principal breeding- 

 places in Ireland are on the west coast. 



Breeding habits : The Arctic Tern is a summer 

 migrant to the British Islands, arriving on the coasts 

 towards the end of April or early in May. Its favourite 

 breeding-haunts are low rocky islands where the beach is 

 covered with sand and shingle, and the ground is more 

 or less clothed with grass and other marine vegetation. 

 In some localities, where an island cannot be had, a 

 secluded part of a shingly beach is selected. Like all 

 its congeners, the Arctic Tern is gregarious during the 

 breeding season, but the colonies vary a good deal in 

 size. One of the most important of these is on the 

 Fame Islands. This Tern probably pairs for life, and 

 yearly returns to the same islands to breed, although the 



