28 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



Nestling. Clothed in greyish down with a sandy-buff tinge, 

 the head somewhat white, and all the upper parts mottled with 

 dusky blackish, very indistinctly ; below white ; bill yellowish ; 

 feet greyish-brown, the webs paler. 



Characters. The Sandwich Tern is the largest of our indi- 

 genous Terns, the wings exceeding twelve inches in length. 

 The feet are black, and the bill is black with a yellow tip. 

 The feathers of the nape are pointed and form an elongated 

 crest. 



Range in the British Islands. This species is a summer visitor 

 to Great Britain, and still breeds regularly on the Fame Islands 

 as well as in a few other localities in England and Scotland, 

 on both the east and west coasts. In several places, such as 

 the Scilly Islands, where the species was formerly known to 

 breed, it is no longer seen during the nesting-season. Mr. 

 Ussher says that in Ireland it is "only known to breed at 

 the present day on one small lake near Ballina, in Mayo, where 

 it is strictly preserved. It has disappeared from its former 

 breeding place on the Rockabill, Co. Dublin." 



Range outside the British Islands. The following extract from 

 Mr. Saunders' recent volume on the Laridcz gives the range 

 of the Sandwich Tern with a preciseness which leaves me 

 nothing to improve upon : " Atlantic and North Sea coasts 

 from the Orkneys southwards to the Mediteranean Black Sea, 

 and Caspian (breeding) ; in winter, along the west coast of 

 Africa to the Cape of Good Hope and up to Natal, down the 

 Red Sea, and across Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf, 

 Mekran coast, and Karachi. East side of America from 

 southern New England to British Honduras, not breeding to 

 the northward of Florida ; only found on the Pacific side on 

 the coast of Guatemala and vicinity, where the continent is 

 very narrow." 



Habits. Seehohm thus describes a visit to the Fame Islands 

 in 1870, when the Sandwich Terns were nesting in some num- 

 bers : " 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. In the thick of them there must have been 



