SANDWICH TERN. 541 



have undergoue considerable diminution. A few pairs nest 

 in the Scilly Islands, but the Editor has no positive know- 

 ledge of the existence of any colony on the south or east 

 coasts of England short of the Fame Islands, although in 

 former years it bred at the mouth of the Blackwater in 

 Essex, and abundantly on Coquet Island olf Alnwick. Be- 

 yond the Scottish border there are several breeding-places : 

 one of them on the Firth of Tay ; it seems probable there 

 is another in Sutherlandshire ; and it also nests on Loch 

 Lomond, and on some other lochs on the west coast of 

 Scotland. There does not appear to be any authenticated 

 breeding-place on the coast of Wales : but a few pairs nest 

 annually in a carefully preserved locality on Walney Island 

 off the coast of Lancashire, and there is a small colony in 

 Cumberland. 



In Ireland, the Sandwich Tern is annually observed upon 

 the coast, and has a few breeding-haunts in some of the islets 

 that are rarely visited by the naturalist. The Editor has 

 visited one colony, which was discovered by Mr. K. Warren, 

 who described it in ' The Zoologist,' 1877, p. 101. Up to 

 1858 the Terns nested on a small lough near Ballina, on a 

 low flat mud-bank close to a colony of Black-headed Galls ; 

 but this bank being submerged during a wet summer, the 

 Terns moved to a larger moorland lough where there is also a 

 breeding-place of the Black-headed Gulls on an island, among 

 the reeds. The Terns make their nests on a bare part of the 

 island, a little way from those of the Gulls ; and the proprietor, 

 Sir Charles Knox Gore, who strictly preserves both species, 

 has had the encroaching bushes and long grass cut off the 

 island in order to give the Terns more space for their nests. 

 They usually arrive in April, although Mr. Warren has 

 observed them as early as the 20th of March ; and they 

 breed earlier than the smaller Terns, the eggs being frequently 

 ready to hatch by the end of May. On the east coast of 

 England they are seldom seen on their migration northward 

 before May, and the return passage commences in August. 



The range of the Sandwich Tern hardly extends to the 

 north of the Danish Islands, and it is very rare in the Baltic, 



