LARIDE. O71 
on the inner web; all the under parts are white; 
legs, toes and webs brownish orange. 
The eggs are somewhat about the size of those of 
the Ring Dotterel, but not nearly so pear-shaped ; 
the ground is a pale cream-colour, but seems to vary, 
one of my specimens having a much richer colour 
than the other: they are all much blotched with 
dark brown and dull purplish grey. 
Arctic TERN, Sterna arctica. The Arctic Tern, 
like the last-mentioned species, is only an occasional 
spring and autumn visitor to our shores: it is so 
much like the Common Tern, especially the young 
birds, that it 1s perhaps difficult to say which of the 
two is the most common, as they get confounded 
with each other, and if they are only seen on the 
wing the difficulty of distinguishing them is con- 
siderably increased. 
In the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1864 (p. 9312), there is a 
very interesting account, by Dr. Saxby, of the nesting 
habits of the Arctic Tern. This account is the more 
valuable as Dr. Saxby says that in Shetland, where 
his observations were made, there was no other 
species of Tern, so there could be no mistake as to 
identity. The eggs, he says, are usually deposited 
on a sandy or gravelly beach, or on a ledge of rugged 
bank which has been broken by the winter gales: in 
such places the eggs are merely laid in a hollow 
scraped out by the bird; but if the soil of the bank 
happens to be wet a small quantity of gravel is some- 
