LARID/E. 



647 



THE COMMON TERN. 



Sterna fluviatilis, Naumann. 



The Common Tern is deservedly so named as regards the southern 

 and even greater part of the British Islands, but there is consider- 

 able difficulty in sketching its northern summer-range with exacti- 

 tude, owing to the fact that this over-laps the southern limits of the 

 Arctic Tern. Broadly speaking, I believe that the Common Tern 

 is the predominant species along the shores of the Channel and on 

 the west side of Great Britain as far north as the Isle of Skye ; 

 while on the east it is found from Kent to the Moray Firth. 

 Northwards, it yields numerically to the Arctic Tern, and often 

 shows a liking for fresh-water lochs or estuaries rather than for 

 exposed islands, though Mr. Harvie-Brown states that in 1885 it was 

 nesting abundantly at the western end of the Pentland Skerries, while 

 the eastern was occupied by a colony of Arctic Terns. There is no 

 conclusive evidence of the occurrence of the Common Tern in the 

 Shetlands, but several colonies are now known in the Orkneys and 

 Outer Hebrides. When the two species inhabit the same area, they 

 frequently shift their ground from year to year in a confusing 

 manner, and this, no doubt, caused Booth to miss seeing the 

 Common Tern on the P'arnes, where large numbers undoubtedly 



