COMMON AND ARCTIC-TERNS 83 



season after season in the flats either on close-cropped turf or 

 among the rough vegetation growing in the sand, chiefly marram 

 grass. The minority are to be found on bare sand, and fewer still on 

 shingle or gravel. On islets off the coast of Wales Mr. Jourdain 

 found hundreds of nests among a luxuriant growth of sea-cabbage 

 over 18 inches high. 1 Nests on close-cropped turf or among rough 

 grass are to be found in Holland, in Ireland, 2 on Muskeget and 

 Pennikese Islands off the United States' eastern seaboard, 3 in Meck- 

 lenburg, 4 also on the island of Borkum off the mouth of the Ems, 5 

 and, according to notes I made in 1905, on Walney Island in North 

 Lancashire. (See photo, PL XLIII.) No doubt other places could be 

 mentioned. On the Scillies the species often places its eggs in 

 masses of seaweed, not infrequently within the tide-washed area, thus 

 courting disaster. 



The Arctic-tern, according to Naumann, prefers above all for its 

 nest-site flat low ground covered with turf or other vegetation. 

 This, he is careful to state, was the conclusion drawn only from his 

 personal observation. Subject to this qualification, he thus makes a 

 distinction between the nesting habits of the two species, for, as above 

 noted, he thought that the common-tern usually nested on bare ground. 

 This, we have seen, is hardly the case. Nor is it at all certain that 

 additional information will support his view as to what is the usual 

 nesting-ground of the Arctic. In Shetland its nests were often found 

 by Saxby on the grassy flats. 6 In Jylland, Denmark, Mr. R. B. Lodge 

 and Mr. Jourdain saw it nesting in scratchings in bare sandbanks in 

 the fiords. At Walney Island, in 1905, of thirty nests examined I 

 found twenty on sand (see PL XLIII.) or shingle. Two or three of these 

 twenty were among the seaweed on the beach, and were washed 

 away by a high tide. Of the remaining ten, nine were on sand among 



1 In litt. 2 TJssher and Warren, loc. cit. Of. British Birds, iii. 169, 201. 



3 Auk, xiii. 51 ; ibid., xiv. 278. 



4 Wustnei and Clodius, Vogel Mecklenburgs, quoted by the editors of Naumann, Vogel 

 Mitteleuropas, loc. cit. 



6 In 1869. See Droste-Htilshoff, Vogelwelt der Nordseeinsel Borkum, p. 230. 

 Saxby, Birds of Shetland, 1874, 326. 



