PLATE I 



LITTLE TERN. Sterna minuta 



June I9///, 1893. The annexed photograph was taken from a nest in a colony 

 on the north coast of Morayshire. The nests were all placed on one bank of 

 sand covered with small stones, and consisting of low mounds, on the south 

 side of which all the nests were placed. This year there were only five pairs 

 nesting there, but in 1887, when I first came across the colony, there were 

 nineteen pairs of birds, and I find the following entry in my journal for that 

 year: 'On the 8th of June I went along the north shore of the Culbin sands, 

 and on coming round a point a small flock of Lesser Terns rose and came 

 flying round my head, uttering their alarm-notes, " yeichk-ycichk." I counted 

 about forty birds altogether. 



' I spent some time walking about and looking for a nest, but without 

 success, as the eggs so closely resemble the gravel on which they are laid 

 that it is almost impossible to detect them even when actually beside the 

 nest. Finding that my chance of getting an egg in that way was small, I 

 withdrew to the back of a sandhill a short distance off and sat down. 



1 In a very few minutes the little birds came back and began to fly 

 about the beds of gravel where the nests were, sometimes swooping down on 

 them, so that it looked as if they must strike the stones, and at other times 

 hovering like little Kestrels above them. In the course of ten minutes I 

 had marked most of them, and rising slowly to my feet I walked down 

 towards them. 



'The Little Terns rose singly and flew quietly away. In a short time I 

 found nineteen nests in little batches of three or four, some of them being 

 within a few inches of my previous footprints. Five of the nests contained 

 three eggs each, five had two, eight had only one egg, and one nest, which 

 I think was the joint-property of two birds, had four eggs in it.' 



