AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 225 



but I think that I have sufficiently proved that the 

 Black Tern is not by any means a very rare visitor to 

 our county. This species formerly bred abundantly 

 in several counties of England — Somerset, Kent, 

 Norfolk, Cambridge, and Lincoln, to wit; but it 

 is very doubtful if it still continues to do so in any 

 part of the United Kingdom ; though within ten 

 or twelve years of the present date (1891) I have 

 occasionally seen its eggs in some numbers in 

 Leadenhall Market, sent over from Holland, with 

 those of many other species of marsh-breeding birds. 

 I found a large colony of these Terns nesting around 

 and upon some small freshwater lakes in Southern 

 Spain in the early summer of 1872. The nests were 

 for the most part built amongst the low-growing 

 w^ater-weeds that nearly covered the surface of the 

 water ; in some instances upon the rushy margins of 

 the ponds, but always in the latter case within a very 

 few inches of the water. These nests were artless 

 platforms of broken pieces of dry reeds and rushes, 

 always sodden with moisture, and very frequently 

 swarming with leeches. 



The eggs are three in number, of a very dark olive- 

 green, blotched, streaked, and spotted with dark 

 reddish brown and black, and are very readily to be 

 distinguished from those of the Whiskered Tern 

 {Hydrochelklon hijhrida), whose nests were promis- 

 cuously interspersed amongst those of the present 

 bird, and of two or three species of Grebe, in the 

 locality to which I have just referred. The cries of 

 the Terns were deafening as they dashed around us 

 in hundreds, occasionally varying their demonstrations 

 by dashes at flying, or dips at swimming or skipping 

 insects or leeches, or the occasional chase of one of 



VOL. II. Q 



