ROSEATE TERN. 545 



some, if not all, were shot, in defiance of the law, by one of 

 the Trinity lighthouse keepers, who sent the specimens in 

 the flesh to a collector in Birmingham. On the west coast 

 it formerly bred in the Scilly Islands ; Mr. John Hancock 

 found it nesting some years ago on Foulney Island, and Mr. 

 Harting and the Editor observed it in May, 1864 and 1865, 

 on the neighbouring Walney Island on the Lancashire coast. 

 It probably nests in a few localities on the coast of Scotland, 

 but statements regarding its breeding on Loch Lomond or 

 any other lochs appear to be devoid of foundation. So far as is 

 known, the Roseate Tern nests almost exclusively on islands, 

 and generally on those which are remote and storm-beaten. 

 Off the coast of Ireland, where there are many such islets, 

 several breeding-places have been enumerated by Thompson ; 

 but most of these have since been abandoned, and although 

 the birds have probably migrated to other and less disturbed 

 localities, it would not be easy, even if it were desirable, to 

 indicate precisely the places where colonies may still be 

 found. There is no doubt that numerically this species has 

 undergone considerable diminution, not so much owing to 

 collectors — for genuine British-killed birds are seldom to 

 be met with — as to indiscriminate egging on the part of 

 fishermen, and the havoc caused by the parties of gunners 

 who used to visit the islands where this and other Terns 

 bred, and kill boat-loads of them, either to furnish plumes 

 for ladies' hats, or for the mere love of slaughter. This Tern 

 is, moreover, exceedingly intolerant of interference, and not 

 only does it easily abandon a locality when persecuted by 

 man, but it also gives way before the encroachments of its 

 heavier and stronger-billed congener the Common Tern, 

 S.Jluviatilis. Dr. Louis Bureau, who has observed the habits 

 of both species for several years on the coast of Brittany, 

 informed the Editor that he had known three colonies of the 

 Roseate Tern broken up in this manner. As soon as the 

 young are able to fly the breeding-places are abandoned, and 

 on migration a straggler is occasionally obtained on the 

 British coast ; an adult shot near Hunstanton in Norfolk by 

 Mr, G. Hunt, on the 12th .July, 1880, is recorded by Lord 



VOL. III. 4 A 



