82 THE TERNS 



appearance of waddling, and did not, therefore, do justice to the 

 state of emotional exaltation in which he appeared to be. 



On one occasion I saw two Arctic-terns facing each other, both in 

 the attitude described, except that one had his head lowered so that 

 the tip of the beak touched the ground. They seemed to be in an 

 aggressive mood, and may have both been males. On another 

 occasion two of the same species made an attack on each other. 

 They both had the heads inclined, and bowed or nodded. It may 

 be, therefore, that the display is used in a modified form as a sign 

 of pugnacity. 



Both species lay their eggs on the ground ; the only exception to 

 this rule that has come to my notice being provided by the common- 

 terns that nest in the Danube delta 1 and in Holland 2 on floating 

 masses of water-plants, and in Hungary on logs floating in rivers. 3 

 There is no satisfactory evidence to show that they differ in their choice 

 of site. Naumann, who was very familiar with both, and was, with 

 Nitzsch, the first to establish beyond doubt the specific distinction 

 between them, held the view that the common-tern preferred gravel 

 to sand, and avoided ground with any but the scantiest vegetation upon 

 it. 3 This conclusion, based on his own repeated observations, made for 

 the most part at least in Germany, is not borne out by evidence now 

 available. It is possible that the species lays more often on gravel 

 than sand, and it undoubtedly lays on bare rock, 4 but it certainly 

 does not seek to avoid vegetation. On the vast shingle stretches of 

 Dungeness, it is true, the number of nests on shingle greatly exceeds 

 those placed elsewhere. Out of fifteen nests I examined twelve 

 were on shingle, three on soil among herbage, one of the latter being 

 among white campion at the foot of a foxglove. Among the sand- 

 hills of Ravenglass, on the other hand, the great majority are placed 



1 B. B. Lodge, Bird-hunting Through Wild Europe, p. 268. 



3 Naumann, Vogel Metteleuropas, xi. 134, editorial quotation from Jourdain and LeverkUhn. 

 * LOG. cit. 



4 Ussher and Warren, Birds of Ireland, p. 320 ; J. Harvie-Brown and H. A. Macplierson, Fauna 

 of North- West Highlands, p. 312 ; Forrest, Fauna of North Wales, p. 373 ; C. J. King (Scillies), in 

 litt. I have found nests on the bare rock at the Fames. 



