3oS THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Family LARIDyE. ' Genus Sterna. 



Sub-family STERNIN.^. 



LESSER TERN. 



Sterna minuta, Lhmceus. 

 Single Brooded. Laying season, June. 



British breeding area: The Lesser Tern is fast 

 becoming local and even rare, partly owing to the ruth- 

 less plundering of its eggs by sea-side " trippers," and 

 persecution by cockney sportsmen, and partly because 

 many of its favourite haunts or their vicinity have now 

 become too thickly populated by man. I will not 

 assist in this Tern's further extermination by naming 

 a single haunt where I know it now breeds, beyond 

 remarking in a vague and general way that small 

 colonies exist here and there round the British coasts, 

 and in one or two more inland localities. When we 

 secure by law more rigorous protection for this, my 

 favourite sea-bird, then may its haunts be more definitely 

 named. 



Breeding habits : This charming little Tern is a 

 summer migrant to our islands, rarely reaching them 

 before May. Its haunts during the breeding season 

 are wide stretches of sandy coast, varied with slips 

 and banks of shingle. Curiously enough it prefers 

 the coast of the mainland to an island, and this un- 

 doubtedly is one of the principal causes of its rapid 

 decrease in numbers, owing to the facilities offered to 

 every wandering rascal to plunder and destroy. Like 

 all the other Terns, the present species probably pairs 

 for life, and yearly returns to one particular part of the 

 coast to breed. It is also gregarious, like its congeners, 

 but unfortunately its colonies in our islands are nowhere 



