196 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



Some years since I met with several pairs during 

 the summer on the Lincolnshire coast near SkegnesSj, 

 where it bred ; but I am afraid it is nearly, if not 

 quite, extinct there *. 



The Lesser Tern arrives at Spurn in May, leaving 

 again in October ; I have met with it there as late as 

 the end of the second week in that month. 



254. STERNA FISSIPES, Linnaeus. Black Tern. 



Mr. Pennant (1771), in his ' British Zoology/ speak* 

 of the Black Tern as found during spring and summer 

 in vast numbers in the fens of Lincolnshire, and 

 says that " they make an incessant noise, and feed as 

 well on flies as water insects and small fish." 



Colonel Montagu f, in the early part of the present 

 century, " observed great numbers of Black Terns in 

 the fens of Lincolnshire during the breeding-season, 

 and could not discern any difference in plumage 

 between the sexes : many that had no white on the 

 head were opened, and males as well as females as- 

 certained. About the middle of May this species 

 prepares a nest of flags or broad grass, in the most 

 marshy places, upon a tuft just above the surface of 

 the water and lays almost invariably four eggs, 

 weighing about three drams each." 



* Colonel Montagu (Diet. Brit. Birds, p. 344), writing on the 

 Lesser Tern, says : " On the coast of Lincolnshire it appears to 

 exceed the other (Sterna hirundo], especially about Skegness. 

 At that place we sometimes observed three eggs together ; for 

 they make 110 nest," f Diet. Brit. Birds, p. 340. 



