CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. SI 
Island, a bank of shingle, etc., near the foot of Amherst Island, 
Bay of Quinte. I found one egg in June 1895, a solitary pair of 
birds being all that were left of the many that formerly bred 
there. I have not heard of any being met with since that date. 
Another locality a little below Kingston was the ‘ Spectacles,” 
three small islands in mid-channel. Many pairs also bred at the 
foot of Wolfe Island, but all these localities have been deserted 
for some years. Further down the river, below Rockport, a few 
pairs still breed. They frequent some rocky islets near Chimney 
Island. In 1893 there were about 30 pairs of birds, but since that 
date they have gradually diminished until in 1896 there were not 
more than 12 pairs, and in a few more years this locality also will 
be deserted by these birds. 
Two or three eggs complete a set. I have seen numbers of 
Terns’ nests and never saw more than three eggs in the same 
nest. When the eggs are laid on rocks, a few stalks of grass 
or bits of bark are collected and formed into a nest. Sometimes 
there is no attempt at nest-building at all, but the eggs are laid on 
the bare rock or ground, usually between the first and third weeks 
of June. On the Magdalen Islands great numbers of these birds 
breed on the sand-bars ; in June 1897 I found them abundant on 
Grosse Isle, where on the 22nd June I saw about 60 eggs, most of 
them recently laid. The nests were made in the short grass and 
on the beaches near the sea. (Rev. C.J. Young.) 
Besides breeding in numbers in the St. Clair marshes, this 
species breeds on islands in Lake Ontario. The nest is on 
gravelly or rocky ground, and built of slight material. Eggs, 
from two to four. (W. Saunders.) 
During July and August of. the present year (1899) the writer 
. spent five weeks on Sable Island, which is situated nearly one 
hundred miles southeast of Nova Scotia. The breeding season 
was nearly over, but Common, Arctic and Roseate Terns were 
still incubating, though thousands of young birds were flying 
around, and still younger ones were hidden in depressions in the 
sand or behind any convenient cover, while the clamour of the 
parents overhead was deafening. The chief breeding-ground 
was on the south side of the island, and this was a wide sand- 
flat extending for ten miles or more in an _east-and-west 
direction. Over this flat were scattered patches of Avenaria 
ages and a few hummocks of sand-grass (Ammophila 
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