BLACK TERN, 517 



terrestrial tendencies. The order Gavi^ consists of the 

 family Laridce, which may be divided into four suh-families : 

 — Sternince or Terns ; Bliynchojnnce or Skimmers (not found 

 in Europe) ; Larince or Gulls ; and Stercorarlime or Skuas. 

 As nearest to the Waders in their habits, food, and nidifica- 

 tion, it seems convenient, in treating of the Sternince, to 

 commence A\ith the Marsh Terns, belonging to the well- 

 defined genus Hydrochelidon. The species comprised in it 

 are three in number, all of them entitled to recognition as 

 British birds, and they are distinguished from most of the 

 other Terns by their shorter bills, short and very slightly 

 forked tails and less webbed feet. 



The Black Tern, of which we have figured an old male in 

 summer dress, and a young bird of the year, is now only a 

 visitor to the British Islands on the spring and autumn 

 migrations ; but in former times, before drainage had broken 

 up its favourite haunts, it was an abundant species in 

 many localities during the breeding-season. When Montagu 

 wrote, early in the present century, it used to breed in 

 Romney Marsh in Kent, but it has long ceased to do so, and 

 in the south of England it is only known as a migrant : 

 sometimes, as in Somersetshire, in tolerable abundance. 

 Receding before the gradual drainage of the fens, it had 

 for some years discontinued breeding in the Feltwell and 

 Hockwold districts in the south-west of Norfolk, but Mr. 

 Stevenson says, that after the great flood of 1852—53, which 

 inundated a large extent of country, several pairs remained to 

 nest in 1853, although they did not return the following year. 

 He adds that the last nest he knew of in Norfolk was found 

 at Sutton in 1858, when the two birds were shot by a marsh- 

 man, who brought them with two eggs to a bird-stuffer in 

 Norwich, from whom Mr. Stevenson obtained them.* In 

 1818 «it nested abundantly in the ' broad ' district, but the 

 late Rev. R. Lubbock subsequently wrote to the Author as 

 follows : — " The Black Tern used to breed in Norfolk in 

 abundance, but that the great breeding-place in a wet alder 

 * Note 162 in Lubbock's ^ Fauna of Norfolk,' Ed. 1870, p. KJD. 



