LESSER TERN. 525 



that month in any small accidental depression in the 

 ground above high-water mark. I have found them^in 

 considerable numbers at the mouth of the Thames on the 

 Kentish side, about Yantlet island, and the creek of the 

 same name close by. When their breeding-haunts are 

 visited, they exhibit but little fear, settling on the ground 

 not far from those who may be looking for their eggs or 

 young, and will frequently walk about with a light step, 

 or with a piping note again take wing. They fly with 

 rapid beats of their long pinions, and from this circum- 

 stance look much larger in the air than when in hand. 

 Their food consists of the fry of surface-swimming fish, 

 and small Crustacea, upon which they descend from the 

 air, and I have frequently seen them alight on the water, 

 sometimes evidently seeking food on the surface, and at 

 others only resting from their labours. 



Their eggs are of a stone colour, spotted and speckled 

 with ash grey and dark chestnut brown ; the length one 

 inch four lines, by eleven lines in breadth. The young 

 are generally able to fly by the end of the second week in 

 July ; and Mr. Audubon mentions that they are fed for a 

 time on the wing by their parents. Both old and young 

 leave this country about the end of September, but I have 

 a note of one seen on the 10th of October, 1839, and I 

 received a notice from the Rev. William Howman of one 

 that was exposed for sale in Norwich market, in the third 

 week of the month of December. 



This species visits many different places along the line of 

 the southern coast from Cornwall to Sussex. It has been 

 noticed on the shores of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk ; was 

 observed by Montagu to be numerous about Skegness, oa 

 the coast of Lincolnshire. Does not breed on the Earn 

 Islands, according to Mr. Selby, but upon the beach of 

 the main land near Holy Island, and on the shore of the 



