162 THE WONDERFUL TROUT 



selves if they could safely take up their usual 

 habitations. During the interval between 

 the 12th May, say, and the 12th June, these 

 terns often keep out far from land, usually 

 hovering and feeding over certain shoals, and 

 resting, when gorged, on the surface of the 

 water. Later in the year, however, the fry 

 hatched, or hatching out, on these fishing- 

 grounds and rising to the surface, within 

 reach of the terns, get drifted shorewards by 

 the normal, warmed west winds, joining the 

 later hatches of fish, which are later of 

 reaching the surface, having been deposited 

 in the colder strata of water near the shore. 

 Then the terns follow, and, by the time of 

 their nesting, their food is all around them 

 in abundance. Nothing perhaps was more 

 noticeable in 1888 than the lateness of the 

 terns in their arrival at their nesting colonies. 

 We have even a record of half-developed 

 embryos in terns' eggs as late as 3rd August 

 on the west coast ; late enough, even though 

 it may have been a second or third laying. 

 We believe also that this may have much to 

 do with the continuous changing of sites so 

 noticeable in these species of birds. 



