98 STERNA MINUTA. 
locality. We accordingly met at Aldeburgh on the Ist of June, and next 
morning taking a boat we were rowed down the river and landed on the 
Beach, which there forms its left bank, about a mile to the southward of the 
high lighthouse. To quote my brother’s note :— 
“The beach there may be a quarter of a mile wide, and is formed in waves— 
the large stones being in the bottoms and the smaller on the tops, through 
which a little coarse grass occasionally forces itself in single stems, and hardly 
ever as a tuft. Between the beach and the river there is generally salt-marsh, 
from fifty to two hundred yards wide. We walked for a about a mile towards 
the high light, the dog we had with us hunting for eggs. It was a small 
liver-coloured spaniel and had belonged to one of our boatmen. It found one 
or two places where eggs had evidently been laid and taken. The whule 
beach was covered with footprints. We presently met a brother of one of 
our boatmen, who told us that he had left Aldeburgh at one o’clock that 
morning, that there were about ten men looking for eggs, and that three or 
four had come over from Orford the night before and slept there. He had got 
about thirty (Terns’) eggs which we saw, all of the same size. He told us 
that one part of the ground, that to the westward, had not been looked over. 
We went there and the dog soon found one egg, then another, and then three 
egos, Of the last, two were dark-coloured and one light. There were no 
nests, but simply about halfa dozen short bents, strewed without form, by 
the eggs. I also found a Plover’s, which had evidently been used as a nest-ege 
as it was quite rotten. We did not see many (Arctic or Common) Terns at 
once—I think not more than ten, and they were very wild, seldom coming 
within gun-shot, and it was impossible to make out of which species they 
were. The Lesser Terns were less numerous and tamer, and they often came 
so near that their white foreheads were conspicuous. Another man, one 
J. Smith, of Aldeburgh, met us. He is said to be the most keen-eyed egg- 
finder, and did not require a dog. He had got about sixty eggs, all Common 
or Arctic Terns’, and one Ring Plover’s. While talking to him, A. watched a 
Lesser Tern alight some two hundred yards off, and we thought it was on its 
nest, so we walked towards it. ‘The dog found a Redshank’s nest, with three 
eggs, in a tuft of grass close to the edge of the marsh, and we saw the bird. 
The Tern got up, and the dog found its nest, which was perhaps twenty yards 
from where we had seen the bird, and it contained these two eggs. We 
then returned to the boat. One of our men had walked to the southward and 
got nine eggs—he said he put his foot ona nest of three. We started on our 
way back sailing with a good southerly wind. Talking to our men they said 
they had never seen Terns’ eggs larger than those we had seen or of the colour of 
Sandwich Terns’, and I think it is pretty clear that the latter do not now breed 
here. The man Smith, who may have been from thirty-five to forty years old, 
told A. that his father had found ‘Gulls’ eggs years ago, and these possibly 
may have been Sandwich Terns’, but the oldest of our men, who said he was 
seventy-five, had never seen or heard of any larger bird or eggs than those we 
had. The men said that Avosets came there every year, and that they saw 
one about a month ago, but did not shoot it. There were a few Ring-Plovers 
on the beach, but not many, and we saw a few Redshanks. The dog found 
what we believed to be a Titlark’s nest, with young in it some days old.” | 
