44 BRITAIN'S BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS. 



The eggs, laid late in May, are two or three in 

 number, and very variable in colour. On the whole, they 

 are lighter in colour and less glossy than the eggs of 

 most Gulls, delicate grays and browns and creamy tints 

 being common. 



The chicks are grayish bufF, and the immature birds, 

 or 'Tarrocks,' may be distinguished by the dark half- 

 collar on the hind-neck, the dark patches on the wings, 

 the dark bar on the tail, and by the black beak and 

 brownish legs. 



In former times Kittiwakes were only protected till the 

 1st of August, when the birds were still about their nesting- 

 places, and frequently had young ones not yet able to 

 leave the cliffs. Thousands were then shot down to supply 

 the plume-market, with much cruelty to the parent birds, 

 and to the chicks thus left to starve. 



Subfamily, STERN I N^ (Terns). 



THE COMMON TERN 



(Sterna fluviatilis). 



Plate 15. 



At interv'als round the coasts of the British Isles we 

 come across considerable stretches of low-lying country which 

 have been overwhelmed by sand. Some of them, perhaps, 

 have always been waste within the memory of man ; but 

 not a few were a century or two ago tracts of fair and 

 fertile land with prosperous villages. In some cases the 

 encroachment of the ' wandering ' dunes was gradual, but 

 in those days irresistible, for even in these times it takes 

 all the craft of man to protect many another fertile 

 tract and threatened village. At other times the attack 



