94 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NA TURAL HISTORY. 



greyish buff, covered with spots of dark brown, so that they look 

 like the stones on the beach, and escape observation. But the 

 safety of the eggs depends to a greater extent on the Tern 

 selecting small, uninhabited islands for its nursery. Thus, the most 

 important breeding stations in the United Kingdom are the Farn 

 Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, where the eggs are laid 

 amongst the shingle, and the birds nest in safety unless disturbed 

 by the advent of a boat. The bird itself is not unfrequently 

 termed the sea swallow, from its possessing a long forked tail, but 

 of course it has no affinity whatever to our graceful and better 

 known insect-catcher. The Tern is a migratory bird, arriving in 

 England from the warm South in April and May, and wending its 

 way to the unfrequented islands where it lays its eggs and rears 

 its young. A flock of terns hovering in an ever-moving mass 

 over the quiet waters of an inland loch is one of the most 

 beautiful sights that can delight the bird lover. The mode in 

 which they swoop down to capture the small fish on which they 

 feed is very characteristic. It is noticeable that not only are the 

 eggs so coloured as to be not easily discerned, but the tints of the 

 young are mottled, and as they lie close among the stones they 

 are hardly to be distinguished from the surrounding shingle. 



Our second example, the Lesser Gull, is perhaps the com- 

 monest of all the English Gulls. It is so destructive to the 

 eggs of game birds that it is banished as much as possible from 

 the grouse districts of the North, and, like the Tern, has taken up 

 its residence on many of the islands in the neighbourhood of the 

 coast. Unlike the Terns, however, the Gulls do not confine their 

 feeding to small fish. This species is almost omnivorous. Its 

 food consists chiefly of fish and small crabs, the undigested shells 



