LESSER TERN. 289 



STERNA MINUTA. 

 LESSER TERN. 



(PLATE 46.) 



Sterna minor, riss. Orn. vi. p. 20G, pi. 19. fig. 2 (1760). 



Sterna minuta, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 228 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum 



Tetmnitick, Naumann, Dcgland fy Gerbe, Dresser, Saunders, &c. 

 Sterna metopoleucos, S. O. Gmel. Nov. Cornm. Petrop. xv. p. 475 (1771). 

 Sternula minuta (Linn.), B<rie, Isis, 1822, p. 563. 

 Sterna antarctica, Licht. Forster's Descr. Anim. It. Mar. Austr. p. 107 (1844). 



The Lesser Tern is nowhere very abundant in the British Islands. It 

 breeds sparingly on the Orkneys, and is generally distributed in scattered 

 colonies round the Scotch coasts and in one or two inland districts, 

 as, for instance, on Loch Lomond. In England several haunts of the 

 Lesser Tern have been deserted ; but a few pairs breed on Spurn Point, a 

 few on the Lincolnshire coast, and thence it is found in scattered colonies 

 on the Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex coasts, and round the southern shores 

 of England, but not extending to the Channel Islands. A few colonies 

 exist on the Welsh coast, as also on the coasts of Lancashire and Cum- 

 berland. It is locally and somewhat sparingly distributed on the Irish 

 coasts, and also in a few localities on the freshwater loughs. 



The range of the Lesser Tern is very restricted, and must be regarded 

 as inland rather than oceanic. It is a summer visitor to Europe as far 

 north as lat. 58, ranging eastwards through Persia to Turkestan. It 

 winters in West Africa and in the valley of the Nile, where a few remain 

 to breed in Egypt. It has occurred in South Africa, but appears rarely 

 to migrate so far south. 



The Lesser Tern has several rather close allies. In North America it 

 is represented by Sterna antillarum, in South America by S. superciliaris 

 and S. exilis, in South Africa by S. balanarum, in South Australia and 

 New Zealand by S. nereis, in the Red and Arabian Seas by S. saundersi, 

 and in South-eastern Asia and North Australia by S. sinensis. From all 

 these species the Lesser Tern can be distinguished by well-marked 

 characters, and may be diagnosed as having not only a white rump, but 

 also dark shafts to the three outer primaries. 



The Lesser Tern is a somewhat late bird of passage. Irby says that at 

 Gibraltar the earliest date on which he observed it was the 10th of May ; 

 it arrives on the British coasts about the middle of May, which is also 

 the time of its arrival in Denmark. In Greece it appears much earlier, 



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