ARCTIC TERN - . 
35 
ford; and in Wiltshire, at Devizes and Trowbridge; doubtless 
most of the intermediate and adjacent parts were likewise 
visited. In Surrey, one at Chertsey, October 6th., 1864. 
These Terns breed in great numbers on Coquet Island and 
the Fern Islands, off the coast of Northumberland. Some 
also in Lincolnshire, on the coast near Skegness; and on the 
Isle of Anglesea, near Holyhead; a few on the Scilly Islands, 
in Cornwall. In Scotland, great numbers along the coast of 
Sutherlandshire, and on the Isle of May, in the Frith of 
Forth. A nest containing four eggs was found at Otmoor, 
in Oxfordshire, in the summer of 1834. 
In Orkney, Shetland, and the Hebrides, they are more or 
less plentiful. 
In Ireland, it is a common species. 
The sea-shore and low grounds in its neighbourhood are 
the situations frequented by these birds. 
They are sociable among themselves, and also mingle with 
other kinds when building their nests together. 
I suppose that the name of Tern is derived from the habit 
the bird has of turning in the remarkable manner it does 
when pouncing on its prey. They are true birds of the air, 
and right pleasant it is to watch them, as each and every 
of the tribe, floating, falling, rising, sailing, turning, diving, 
in the kindred element whose lightness they almost seem to 
equal, on some ‘smiling morn’ which you will do well to 
hail when land and sea are ready to welcome you with the 
indescribable freshness of the early hours. 
They feed on coal-fish, sand-launce, and any other small 
fish that come to their neb, all stray things being considered 
as such; these they capture on the wing; also water-insects 
and their larvse, worms, and Crustacea; on the shore or grounds 
near it severally, even following the plough, and availing 
themselves of the results of the turning up of the soil. The 
young are fed with the same food. 
The note is described by Meyer as resembling the words 
‘greer, greer,’ and ‘give, give,’ uttered in a soft tone. 
This Tern contents itself with a slight hollow scratched 
out either in the bare sand, gravel, rocks, or grass, a little 
of the latter forming a lining, or the former alone sufficing, 
as the case may be, by the sea-shore, the borders of islets, 
or the mouths of rivers. Great numbers build together, and 
the nests are so closely contiguous that it is hardly possible 
to avoid walking upon them. 
