304 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



creased in numbers this year ; that it may continue to do 

 so is sincerely to be hoped ; but where robbed of their 

 eggs, and both old and young cruelly shot at a time when 

 they are so unsuspecting, their banishment cannot be 

 long delayed. To ruthlessly destroy these lovely sum- 

 mer visitants, by taking their eggs and shooting them, 

 seems little short of infatuation; and when once the 

 race which has bred on our shores for perhaps thousands 

 of years has been extirpated, it is extremely doubtful, 

 even under the most rigid system of protection, whether 

 others would ever come to occupy the vacant breeding 

 site. It is wrong that we should deprive our descendants 

 of the pleasure aflPorded by the sight of these exquisite 

 creatures, and commercially it is short-sighted policy, 

 for the presence of a carefully protected breeding-place 

 of terns, in close proximity to a sea-side town, must 

 certainly prove a great attraction to visitors, and there- 

 fore a source of profit. 



" On their first arrival in spring, towards the end of 

 April," says Mr. Stevenson, the common terns " are fre- 

 quently seen on the broads and rivers ; but, in autumn, 

 when in company with their young broods, they keep 

 almost entirely to the sea-coast, and rarely remain with 

 us later than the first week in October." Mr, A. Pat- 

 teson, who has observed this species at Yarmouth, tells 

 me that when the wind blows from a westerly direction, 

 especially south-west, he has found the terns most 

 numerous, " flock succeeding flock playfully, busily, but 

 leisurely, working southward ; at such time herring fry, 

 which swims inshore and near the surface, offers them 

 great attraction, and they seem literally to gluttonise on 

 them." 



The common terns arrive at their breeding stations 

 in the month of May, and the 24th of that month is the 

 earliest date on which in a particular season an egg was 

 found, and in that instance it was a single one ; on the 

 26th many were laid, and by the 1st June the deposition 

 of the eggs was general."^ I have found fresh eggs as 



* On their nests and nesting habits Colonel Feilden has 

 contributed some interesting notes to the " Zoologist " for 1889, 

 p. 264, 



