52 BRITISH SEABIRDS. 
doubtless because of their greater safety. We 
cannot class this bird as an elaborate nest builder, 
a mere hollow, scantily lined with a little withered 
grass or weeds, being the only provision. The two 
or three eggs vary from buff to grayish-brown in 
ground colour, blotched and spotted with several 
shades of rich brown and gray. But one brood 
is reared, and as soon as the young are strong upon 
the wing, the nesting places are deserted, and the 
movement south begins. 
Terns migrate leisurely in autumn, often re- 
maining a day or so here and there, on and off 
the coast, and are then seen in localities which 
they never frequent during summer. 
THE ARCTIC TERN. 
This Tern, widely known to systematists as the 
Sterna arctica of Temminck, was unaccountably 
confused with the preceding species, until the 
German naturalist, Naumann, appears first to have 
pointed out their specific distinctness. The Arctic 
Tern is par excellence the Tern of our northern 
coasts, say from the Farne Islands and Lancashire 
onwards to the Orkneys and the Shetlands. I am 
not aware that it breeds anywhere on the English 
coast between Spurn and the Scilly Islands, but 
there are a few scattered colonies on the west coast 
of England and Wales. This pretty Tern may be 
distinguished from its near ally, the Common Tern 
