322 BRITISH BIRDS 



her. Then he begins a series of extraordinary evolutions. AYith 

 head thrown back, wings drooping, and tail cocked straight up, lie 

 struts no other word expresses it he struts a"bout in front of his 

 mate. ... He jumps at his mate, as if daring her to take the fish. 

 Then he will fly round for a bit, only to settle again and repeat the 

 play. I have seen on several occasions a female " chit," before she 

 had settled down on her eggs, get up, fly off, settle on the shingle 

 off and on for a considerable time, followed persistently by her fish- 

 bearing partner, but always avoiding him, as if coquetting or really 

 amiO3'ed. Sooner or later the fish is always relinquished, or, as I 

 suspect, taken by the female bird.' 



In Norfolk the little terns are called chits, or chit-perles. 



Sandwich Tern. 

 Sterna cantiaca. 



Bill and feet black ; upper part of the head black ; mantle 

 pearl-grey ; rump, tail, throat, and under parts white ; the breast 

 suffused with rose. Length, sixteen inches. 



This is the largest of the British terns, being as much superior 

 as the little tern is inferior in size to the arctic and common species. 

 In its manner of flight and language it differs somewhat from the 

 others. At a distance the under parts appear to be of a snowy white- 

 ness ; in the captive or dead bird the white plumage is seen to be 

 suffused with an evanescent delicate pink colour. On the wing the 

 Sandwich tern does not look so graceful and beautiful as the smaller 

 species : the flight is heavier, straighter, unwavering, the wings 

 beating more rapidly. Its scream is shorter, less inflected, and has 

 a harsh and even grating sound. 



This tern suffers much from the persecutions of the egg- collector, 

 as well as of that base kind of sportsman who is allowed to amuse 

 himself in August and September by slaughtering terns. On the 

 Fame Islands, which are protected during the breeding season, there 

 now exists a considerable colony of Sandwich terns, numbering 

 about one thousand pairs, and a few smaller colonies are found on 

 the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, and on some of the lakes of 

 those countries. On the Fames the birds breed on one of the islands 

 on a flat surface overgrown with sea-campion, and here their nests 

 are placed so close together that it is difficult at times to walk over 



