SEA-BIRD NUMBERS AND MAN 89 



year in the nineteenth century. At the turn of the century it was 

 possible that the only nests in Britain were one or two on the Fame 

 Islands, in Northumberland. At present there are twenty colonies or 

 less, which are not likely to have much more than a thousand occupied 

 nests in any one year, about one-third of which are in Anglesey and 

 at least one-third of which are in County Down. Outside Britain a 

 few hundred pairs of roseate terns breed on islets off the coast of Brit- 

 tany; and in 1951 R. M. L. and the warden, H. Lomont, of the Reserve 

 zoologique, found two pairs nesting in the Camargue of southern 

 France. 



Perhaps the best example of a tern which protection has helped 

 (but whose fluctuation, and desultory breeding, protection has not 

 prevented) is the Sandwich tern. The most spectacular increases in 

 the population of this bird have been in Holland, where at present it 

 is likely that ten times as many nest as in Germany or Britain. Indeed, 

 round 1940 there may have been forty thousand nests on this fairly 

 short coast, which is the culmination of notable increases during the 

 first half of this century, which have been primarily due to protection, 

 in which the Dutch excel. The numbers of the colonies have fluctuated 

 and, as is also true in Germany and Britain, the population has 

 transferred itself from one part of the coast to a neighbouring part in 

 subsequent successful seasons. In Britain it is probable that the 

 Sandwich tern was extinguished at its original haunts near Sandwich 

 by eggers rather than by plume traders. It has never returned. In 

 Norfolk the situation (see table, p. 86) in the sanctuaries provided 

 for terns by the National Trust and the Norfolk Naturalists' Trust 

 shows a triumph for bird protection, which has established the species 

 in large numbers, though it has clearly been unable to control its 

 fluctuation. A colony on the Fame Islands in Northumberland has 

 survived egging by collectors for human food and for oologists' cabinets 

 in the nineteenth century, and while it does not at present attain the 

 numbers it reached in the last century, it seems to have (rather sur- 

 prisingly) consistently remained at about a thousand nests. In spite 

 of some suitable nesting space being occupied by arctic and other 

 species of terns, the Sandwich tern seems to have started new colonies 

 farther north, for the species seems to be steadily building up its num- 

 bers (since 192 1) in the Firth of Forth. In Ireland an increase which 

 was noticeable early in the present century may not continue. In 

 Jerse/ it is numerous in some years; in 1952 the colony of 250 pairs 

 suddenly disappeared after laying eggs. 



