LESSER TERN. 411 



the Thames on the Kentish side, about Yantlet island, and 

 tlie creek of the same name close by. When their breeding- 

 haunts are visited they exhibit but little fear, settling on the 

 ground not far from those who may be looking for their eggs 

 or young, and will frequently walk about with a light step, 

 or with a piping note again take wing. They fly with rapid 

 beats of their long pinions, and from this circumstance look 

 much larger in the air than when in hand. Their food con- 

 sists of the fry of surface-swimming fish, and small Crustacea, 

 upon which they descend from the air, and I have frequently 

 seen them alight on the water, sometimes evidently seeking 

 food on the surface, and at others only resting from their 

 labours. 



Their eggs are of a stone colour, spotted and speckled with 

 ash-grey and dark chestnut-brown ; the length one inch four 

 lines, by eleven lines in breadth. The young are generally 

 able to fly by the end of the second week in July ; and Mr. 

 Audubon mentions that they are fed for a time on the wing 

 by their parents. Both old and young leave this country 

 about the end of September, but I have a note of one seen 

 on the 10th of October, 1839, and 1 received a notice from 

 the Rev. William Howman of one that was exposed for sale 

 in Norwich market, in the third week of the month of De- 

 cember. 



This species visits many different places along the line of 

 the southern coast from Cornwall to Sussex. It has been 

 noticed on the shores of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk ; was 

 observed by Montagu to be numerous about Skegness, on the 

 coast of Lincolnshire. Does not breed on the Fani islands, 

 according to Mr. Selby, but upon the beach of the main land 

 near Holy Island, and on the shore of the Frith of Forth on 

 both sides. Professor Macgillivray says it visits the sands 

 near Aberdeen, and also some other localities on the west 

 coast of Scotland. It frequents some of the sandy flats in 



