346 BIRDS OF TUNISIA 



spring and summer months, breeding there regularly in considerable 

 numbers, and leaving again on the approach of autumn. 



During the last two or three years, however, the species appears 

 to have diminished sensibly in numbers, in consequence, it is said, 

 of the ruthless persecution to which it, in common with other Terns, 

 is subjected by the Arabs who take the eggs. This robbery seems to 

 be carried out in a wholesale and systematic way, men, women and 

 children joining together in parties and walking in line carefully over 

 the ground where a colony of Terns may have established their 

 breeding quarters, and taking every egg they may find, apparently 

 merely for food. 



Some of the small low-lying islets in the neighbourhood of the 

 larger island of Djerba, which, according to Blanc, used formerly 

 to be the favourite breeding haunts of several colonies of the Koseate 

 Tern, are now deserted by the species, and a collector, whom I sent, 

 together with Blanc, in the month of June of the present year (1905), 

 to that part of the Regency, failed to meet with this Tern. Unfor- 

 tunately time did not permit of a very extended tour being made, or 

 of some other islands and likely breeding ground of this species on 

 the South-east Tunisian coast, being visited. 



According to Blanc the Roseate Tern is not usually to be found 

 in any part of North Tunisia, but among the examples of the species 

 sent me by him there is one labelled as having been obtained near the 

 town of Tunis in the autumn of 1896, and it appears, therefore, that 

 the bird occasionally wanders to the north of the Regency, though 

 it maj' not occur there as a regular visitor. There seems to be no 

 instance, however, of the species breeding anywhere in Tunisia except 

 on the south-east coast, nor of its wintering in any part of the 

 Regency. 



The geographical distribution of the Roseate Tern is somewhat 

 peculiar. In Europe the species has been found breeding on the 

 coasts of the British Isles and on the west coast of France, as also, 

 apparently, on the west coast of Denmark. It has also been met 

 with, presumably on jiassage, on Lake Leman in Switzerland. It 

 occurs in the Azores and Madeira, thence ranging across the Atlantic 

 to the Bermudas and America, where it breeds on the east coast from 

 Massachusetts to the West Indies, and as far south as Venezuela, 

 though it does not seem to be recorded from the Pacific side. In 

 Africa, besides being met with in Tunisia, the species occurs in Cape 



