206 Birp Lire AND Birp PHOTOGRAPHY. 
ten years previously. The only immature specimen of this bird 
known is in Trinity College Museum in Dublin. It was caught 
alive in Waterford Harbour, and was with difficulty kept alive 
for four months, mainly on potatoes and milk. Oddly enough, 
it devoured fresh water fish greedily, but did not seem to care 
for sea fish. 
This is the photograph of a cast of a great auk’s egg—from 
the Hancock Museum, Newcastle. Only some 71 eggs are now 
known to be extant. 
SEA BirDs ON FLAMBOROUGH HEAD. 
Our next photographs are of that famous nesting resort of sea 
birds, Flamborough Head, off the coast of Yorkshire. Here we 
see the “ Door’’ Cliff and “Staple Nook.’’ Myriads of puffins 
and guillemots annually come here to nest, and when the Ornitho- 
logical Congress met in England last year, the foreign members 
were taken to this spot as being one of the ornithological sights 
of Europe. Personally, on the unfrequented wild north-west 
coast of Ireland I have been far more impressed, both by the 
variety and numbers of birds there, and by the superior grandeur 
of the maritime scenery. This photograph, also taken at Flam- 
borough Head, shows some guillemots sitting on a ledge of rock ; 
and gives a good idea of the steepness of these cliffs. 
fe 
LESSER TERN AND ARCTIC TERN. 
Our next four photographs were all taken in Ireland, and 
concern the lesser tern. Here we see a nest on the sand. It is 
very seldom that any materials are made use of, and the supposi- 
tion that this bird decorates its nest with pieces of shell is, I think, 
erroneous. Such decorations are employed by the ringed plover, 
whose old nests are occasionally utilised by the lesser tern. This 
photograph shows the eggs of a lesser tern placed in what I take 
to be a ringed plover’s disused nest. The colony of lesser terns 
‘which provided us with these photographs nested in close prox- 
imity to a colony of Arctic terns. Here we see a nest containing 
three eggs of the Arctic tern and one of the lesser tern. That 
such mistakes do not more often happen, when large colonies of 
birds are nesting within but a few feet of one another, is one of the 
marvels of Nature. The Arctic tern was sitting on all four eggs, 
but I had left before they were hatched. This photograph shows 
