82 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



When stationed at Fyzabad, Oudh, in 1867, I went out one 

 July morning with my friend Mr. Naher, of the Oudh Commission, 

 on a naturalizing excursion ; and we had hardly gone two miles 

 beyond the town when our attention was attracted by the out- 

 cry of a vast assembly of these handsome Terns, that were 

 flying over a gheel or swamp, about a mile in circumference, 

 and within a stone's throw of the main road and of a village 

 which overlooked the piece of water. 



My friend, who had a pair of glasses in his hand, called out 

 that they were building nests on the swamp, which was one mass 

 of tangled weeds and aquatic creepers, &c. I was, of course, 

 somewhat incredulous of their building floating nests, as Jerdon 

 mentions that they lay on the "churs" of the Ganges, i.e. 

 sand-banks. We were, however, soon assured that they were 

 all actively engaged in carrying long wire-like weeds (some of 

 them 2 feet long) from different parts of the gheel, and making 

 huge floating nests on the surface of the water. 



On the 7th July we again visited the place, taking a small 

 canoe with us, which was pushed through the rushes and weeds 

 with the greatest difficulty ; and we were soon rewarded with as 

 many eggs as we could carry home. 



Each nest contained one, two, or three eggs, — though possi- 

 bly four may be the proper number, had we allowed the bii'ds 

 sufficient time to lay the full complement. 



The circumference of some of the nests I measured ranged 

 between 3| and 4 feet, and they were about 4 inches thick. They 

 were composed entirely of aquatic plants, and so interwoven with 

 the growing creepers that it was quite impossible to I'emove them 

 without cutting at the foundation of the structure. I managed 

 to bring away a few, which, together with specimens of the birds 

 and their eggs, 1 deposited in the Fyzabad Museum before leav- 

 ing for England. The eggs, as may be expected, are subject to 

 the same endless varieties as those of the S. hirundo and S. arctica, 

 but difi"er in being smaller, less pointed, and in the general 

 ground-colour being much lighter. 



On comparing twelve that I still possess with an equal num- 

 ber of the eggs of the other two species, 1 find that the average 

 length of the former [S. leucopareia) is 1'4 inch, about 0*2 less 



