LESSER TERN. , 559 



with a light step, or with a piping note again take wing. 

 They fly with rapid beats of their long pinions, and from this 

 circumstance look much larger in the air than when in the 

 hand. Their food consists of the fry of surface-swimming 

 fish, and small Crustacea, upon which they descend from the 

 air, and they are frequently seen to alight on the water, 

 sometimes evidently seeking food on the surface, and at 

 others only resting from their labours. Their note is a 

 sharp pirre. 



The eggs are of a stone-colour, spotted and speckled with 

 ash-grey and dark chestnut-brown ; average measurements 

 1'35 by '95 in. The young are generally able to fly by the 

 end of the second week in July ; and, usually, both old and 

 young leave this country about the end of September, but 

 the Autbor had a note of one seen on the 10th of October, 

 1839, and he received a notice from the Eev. William How- 

 man of one that was exposed for sale in Norwich market, in 

 the third week of the month of December. 



This species visits many different places along the line of 

 the southern coast from Cornwall to Sussex. It breeds on 

 the shores of Essex, Sufiblk, and Norfolk ; near Skegness in 

 Lincolnshire ; and on Spurn Point in Yorkshire ; but the 

 small colony which bred in Selby's time on the main land 

 near Holy Island in Northumberland, no longer exists. 



On the east coast of Scotland colonies are to be found 

 from Haddington to Sutherland ; and its summer range 

 is said to extend to the Orkneys. On the west side it 

 nests in several localities, both inland, as on Loch Lomond, 

 and on the coast, down to the Sol way ; and, continuing the 

 line, we find it breeding in Cumberland, Lancashire, and in 

 suitable places in Wales. In Ireland it is of tolerably 

 general distribution along the coast, and on the fresh-water 

 loughs, although nowhere abundant. Mr. R. Warren informs 

 the Editor that he has an egg of a clutch taken a few years 

 ago at the end of the North Wall, Dublin — a remarkable 

 situation for a nest of this species. 



The northern range of the Lesser Tern can scarcely be 

 traced beyond the southern portions of Norway, Sweden, 



