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BREEDING OF THE ROSEATE TERN IN 

 IRELAND. 



BY 



GEORGE R. HUMPHREYS. 



For a considerable number of years the Roseate Tern 

 (Sterna dougalli) has been exchided from the Hst of 

 Irish breeding birds. The late Mr. Ussher, in his report 

 on the birds of Clare Island iProc. B. Irish Acad., Vol. 

 XXXI., part 20, page 39), stated that the Roseate 

 Tern had been rarely met with in Ireland for the last 

 fifty years, but referred to a specimen shot in Clew 

 Bay on the 3rd August, 1904, which would rather lead 

 one to suppose that the species was breeding in Ireland 

 ^t that time. The only other specimen I can find recorded 

 is a male which was killed by striking Hook Tower Light- 

 house, CO. Wexford, on the 30th April, 1897. This bird 

 is in Mr. Barrington's collection, having been sent him 

 in the flesh.* 



It gives me much satisfaction to be in a position to 

 put on record the nesting of the Roseate Tern in Ireland 

 this year (1913). Unfortunately the time at my chsposal 

 was very hmited, and my observations were confined to 

 two visits to the colony, both of short duration. 



During the third week in July, while visiting a breeding- 

 colony of Common and Arctic Terns, I was attracted, 

 almost immediately on my arrival, by the alarm-note of 

 a tern which was flying around with the commoner 

 species. This note was a harsh " crake," and quite 

 different from the note of any tern I had previously heard. 

 The bird kept uttering its harsh note the whole time it 

 was flying overhead, and consequently I had not much 

 difficulty in picking it out, when I at once noticed it had 

 a decidedly fighter coloured plumage than the rest, and 

 appeared of a more slender build. By the aid of a pair 

 of prism glasses I examined it more closely, and now 

 noticed the apparently black beak. Although the 



* Birds of Ireland, Ussher and Warren, p, 319. 



