STERNA. 309 



Kites, and similar \vould-b3 robbers from the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of their nests is very noticeable. To me they seemed to 

 show more solicitude for their eggs than any of the other species 

 breeding near them. It is impossible to doubt when they have 

 eggs anywhere near ; the way they flash backwards and forwards 

 and wheel round and round overhead, incessantly repeating their 

 shrill plaintive cry, at once reveals the existence of the treasures 

 they are so anxious to preserve ; but for this the search for their 

 eggs would be weary work, as it is only when quite close to them that 

 they catch the quickest eye, and I have myself seen ordinarily 

 observant persons (not of course specially on the look-out for, or 

 thinking of, eggs) walk right across a bank on which there were 

 some fifty nests of this and kindred species, almost stepping on 

 some, without ever noticing a single egg. 



"April 6th. Eevisited all these sandbanks, but found very few 

 eggs ; the great majority had clearly hatched off, and those we did 

 find probably belonged to birds that we had robbed, since we found 

 none on those banks where, having quite as many eggs as we 

 wanted, we did not meddle with the nests we saw. 



" I found many nests, each containing three hard-set eggs, of 

 this species on a series of sandbanks in the Chenab, near Wuzee- 

 rabad, on the 28th April. On the 9th t April I had taken several 

 fresh eggs (in no case more than two in any one depression) on 

 sandbanks on the Jhelum, between the station of that name and 

 Find Dadan Khan. As a rule, one does not find numerous pairs 

 of this species breeding on the same sandbank, and though they 

 always lay on banks occupied by other species also, they almost 

 always keep a good many yards apart from each other and other 

 species." 



Writing from Tipperah, the late Mr. Valentine Irwin remarked : 

 " The large Eiver-Tern (S. seena) lays during March with us. 

 The eggs I sent you were obtained on the 15th of March on sand- 

 banks in the Megna, about 20 miles below the Dacca Eoad." 



From Pegu, Mr. Eugene Gates writes that this species is 

 " abundant throughout the whole length of the Irrawaddy and 

 Sittang rivers, where it lays on the numerous sandbanks in the 

 middle of March. In the extensive plains round Pegu it is 

 common in all the tidal creeks. In these localities, 1 think, it 

 nests in paddy-fields and waste ground covered with short grass." 

 This latter belief, however, I do not share. 



Writing of this species and Sterna melanoyastra, Major Wardlaw 

 Earn say says: "Both these species breed in large numbers on 

 the sandbanks of the Sittang in March, April, and May." 



Typically the eggs of this species are broad ovals, scarcely 

 pointed at either end. The eggs have little or no gloss, though 

 the shell is very smooth and fine. In ground-colour, extent and 

 character of markings they vary excessively, and yet there is a 

 certain family resemblance amongst all the eggs of this species, 

 which prevents their being confounded with those of any of our 

 other Indian Terns with which I am acquainted. The ground- 



