THE COMMON TERN. 

 (Sterna fluviatili^.) 



THIS birds nests in companies, in grassy places near a 

 river bank, where a nest, without any foundation, is 

 made, being a flat hollow in the ground. In this it lays 

 two or three eggs of a clay- or brownish-yellow colour, 

 speckled with violet-grey and brown. The Tern is a 

 real ornament to our large rivers and lakes, with its 

 guileless nature and its fine swinging flight. If it were 

 to disappear we should lose one of the joys and beauties 

 of life. All day long it flies over the water, with only 

 short intervals of rest which it takes on a gravel heap 

 or a hurdle, with neck drawn in and pointed upwards, 

 only turning its head now and then to look at the water. 

 It constantly flies at the same height, and as soon as its 

 prey comes to the surface of the water it spreads its tail 

 stiffly downwards, and hovers, beating with its wings, 

 and gazing fixedly on the spot where the victim showed 

 itself. Then, suddenly, it drops like a stone, with a 

 loud splash, into the water. It has then secured its 

 booty, usually a small fish. Its usual voice sounds like 

 " Krie y " ; sometimes, when in trouble, it utters a light 

 " Kck " or " Krek." It is not common enough in 

 Hungary to do much mischief. 



In Great Britain we find the Common Tern along the 

 shores of the Channel and up the West coast as far as 

 the Isle of Skye, and again from the Moray Firth down 

 to Kent. In Ireland it is plentiful in the South. 

 " Three species at least of the beautiful terns, well within 

 my own time, bred freely in this country; but their 

 colonies on the flats and the foreshores have been harried 



