The food of the Common Tern consists principally of young fish, sand- 

 eels, and small crustaceans, but all sorts of fry are taken. It is almost entirely 

 obtained upon the wing, and the bird may often be observed perched on the 

 stakes of the salmon-nets watching for any small fish that may come near. 

 Its ordinary cry is a long-drawn ' keeee-aarrr] sometimes ' krreeeej but at 

 the nest a constantly repeated ' kik-kik ' is heard, especially if its young or 

 eggs are in danger. 



The Common Tern nests in some places in huge colonies ; perhaps the 

 best known of these is on Staples Island at the Fames, off the coast of 

 Northumberland ; there the birds nest in thousands. I have seen two or 

 three small colonies of this Tern in Morayshire, and one very picturesque 

 colony I saw was on a small island near Inverness, on the river Ness. They 

 begin to lay in the beginning of June, sometimes late in May. Two or three 

 eggs are laid, sometimes on the bare ground, but never with very much 

 lining to the nest. Most nests I have seen 'have been mere hollows lined 

 with a few bits of grass and pieces of sea-campion, occasionally a few feathers 

 or pieces of dried seaweed. 



The eggs vary in ground-colour from' pale -greyish buff sometimes almost 

 white to brownish buff, sometimes olive green of various shades. They are 

 marked with surface-spots of very dark brown, sometimes purplish black 

 and inky grey underlying markings. Sometimes the spots are distributed 

 fairly evenly over the entire surface of the egg ; sometimes they are confluent, 

 and form large blotches of colour on the large end of the egg, or form an 

 irregular zone round it, and sometimes they are small, and few in number. 

 They go through an infinite number of varieties, and cannot be distinguished 

 from those of the Arctic or Roseate Terns. They vary in length from 

 r85 to i '48 inch, and in breadth from 135 to 1*15 inch. 



Young in down are brownish buff mottled with black on the upper parts, 

 and the under parts are pure white ; the throat is dark brown. The bill of 

 the adult Common Tern is orange red tipped with black, while that of the 

 Arctic Tern is entirely pinkish red. The tarsus of the Common Tern measures 

 three-quarters of an inch in length, that of the Arctic Tern only half 

 an inch. 



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