244 BIRDS OF LANCASHIRE, 



made. Their habits, times of arrival and departure, 

 and the conditions under which they are seen away from 

 the shore, are much the same, but the Common Tern is 

 the more generally distributed of the two, and is, or has 

 been until very lately, found nesting in several localities 

 other than Walney Island and its vicinity. On Foulney, 

 in 1840, Mr. John Hancock found it plentiful, and 

 Mr. W. A. DurnfoL-d (" Birds of Walney," 1883) says 

 that it nests in suitable places all along the coast of 

 Furness. Mr. John Watson has known it to breed for at 

 least three years on the mosses on the Westmorland 

 border, on Martin Mere, according to Mr. E. J. Howard, 

 it used to do so plentifully, and not very long ago a con- 

 siderable colony frequented the sand-hills in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Formby. Here, on June 11, 1873, the late 

 Mr. H. Durnford {ZooL, 1873) found it breeding in 

 numbers, the two or three eggs being placed on the top 

 of the most naked sand-hills, and without any nest 

 whatever. On Walney it chooses sometimes a bank of 

 pebbles just above high-water mark, often hollows in 

 the drift sea-weed and in the sand-hills abutting on the 

 beach, and occasionally a nest is constructed of little 

 bits of drift-wood, a habit which Mr. J. E. Harting says 

 is not uncommon with this species. The eggs are laid 

 early in June, but owing to indiscriminate robbery, 

 young in down may be found up to the end of July, and 

 from this cause the Common Tern is now but rare in 

 places where not many years ago its eggs might have 

 been collected by hats-full. 



