274 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Brought forward 258 



Herring-Gull 4 



Kittiwake 17 



Oyster-catcher 8 



Ringed Plover 8 



Guillemot 56 



Cormorant 83 



Puffin 16 



Eider Duck 6 



456 



The Sandwich Terns were so abundant at that time that it was impos- 

 sible to walk across the colony without treading on their eggs. I only 

 took exceptionally handsome eggs, and after I had made my selection the 

 numbers left in the nests (if nests they may be called) were not perceptibly 

 lessened. The Sandwich Tern arrives at the Fame Islands about the 

 middle of April to reconnoitre its breeding-grounds : every morning the 

 birds pay an early visit to the islands, before they disappear to feed ; as 

 the time when they begin to lay approaches, they lengthen their stay ; 

 until, about a month after their arrival, they have finally decided on a site 

 for the colony, when they take up their permanent abode on the islands 

 for the season and the first eggs are laid. This usually happens about the 

 middle of May, a week earlier or a week later, according to the season. 

 They generally choose the spot where they bred in the previous year; but 

 if the nests are repeatedly robbed and cleared of all their eggs (which, I 

 regret to say, occasionally used to happen, especially on misty mornings 

 when the thieves were concealed by the fog), the birds desert their colony 

 and found a new one on another island. Occasionally a small colony is 

 found at a distance from the main one, perhaps on the next island. On 

 my first visit to the Fame Islands, in company with Mr. Charles Don- 

 caster, we found three or four nests of the Sandwich Tern on an island 

 called the Wide Opens ; they were the most flimsy structures possible, 

 placed on the short grass between the masses of bladder campion, which 

 covered a great part of the island, almost down to high-water mark of 

 spring-tides. We were much disappointed to find so small a colony; 

 but Cuthbertson, our guide, advised us to try the next island, which could 

 easily be reached on foot by traversing a long shingly beach which was 

 exposed at low water. So we trudged along patiently and laboriously over 

 the loose stones until we reached it, and suddenly found ourselves in a 

 perfect little Eldorado.. On a gently sloping sand-bank leading up to the 

 centre of the island, which was merely a mass of shelving rock, perhaps 

 thirty feet across, there was a large colony of the Sandwich Tern. The 



