320 BRITISH BIRDS 



Roseate Tern. 



Sterna dougalli. 



Bill black, orange-red at the base in the breeding season ; legs 

 and feet red ; head and upper parts the same as in the arctic ;m<l 

 common terns, except that the mantle is a paler pearl-grey ; lower 

 parts white suffused with rose. Length, fifteen inches and a quarter. 



This species differs from the two already described in its slimmer 

 body and greater length of tail, and in its shorter and narrower wings. 

 It also differs in the delicate rose-colour suffusing or tinging the 

 white under-plumage ; but this faint exquisite hue is seen only 

 when the bird is in the hand. On the wing, unless very near, it 

 appears white and pale grey like the common tern, and only an 

 accustomed eye can distinguish it among the others by its slightly 

 different shape. It may be more easily recognised by its short, con- 

 stantly repeated note, which is more musical than that of the other 

 species. Besides this short, excited note, it has the long, somewhat 

 guttural, and gull-like cry common to all the terns. It breeds only 

 on islands, and Howard Saunders, our best authority on the birds 

 of this order, says that it is more 'intolerant of interference' than 

 other terns : hence many of its old breeding-stations on the British 

 coasts have been successively abandoned during the last half-century 

 owing to egg-collecting, and the bird is now becoming so rare that 

 its extinction as a British species at no distant date is feared by 

 ornithologists. In the north of England, and at various places on 

 the coasts of Scotland, a few pairs still breed in company with the 

 common and arctic terns. The nest is a slight depression in the 

 sand and gravel, and two or three eggs are laid, creamy white or 

 buff-colour, blotched and clouded with bluish grey and rich brown. 

 As soon as the young have been reared the breeding-ground is aban- 

 doned, and the migration southwards begins. 



Little Tern. 

 Sterna minuta. 



Bill orange-yellow tipped with black ; legs and feet orange ; 

 crown and nape black ; forehead and stripe over the eye white ; 

 mantle pearl-grey ; tail and under parts white. Length, eight inches. 



