318 BEITISH BIEDS 



ing wave. It is a rare pleasure to watch a number of these terns 

 feeding in an inlet or bay, where the spectator can sit or lie on a 

 cliff or jutting rock near to and on a level with the birds. They are 

 not concerned at his presence, but, intent on their prey, pass and 

 re-pass before him so near that their round, brilliant eyes may be 

 distinctly seen. The blood-red, dagger-like beak is pointed down- 

 wards almost constantly as the bird gazes on the water thirty or 

 forty yards below. All at once the buoyant flight is arrested, the bird 

 hangs motionless in mid-air, the snow-white, forked tail expanded 

 and depressed, the slow-moving, wavering wings rapidly vibrated. 

 In such an attitude he reminds you less of a windhover than of the 

 humming-bird, when that little feathered fairy is seen hovering 

 motionless above the flowers on which its eyes are fixed. Suddenly 

 the wings partly close, and the white figure drops plumb down, with 

 such force as to send up a shower of foam and spray as it strikes on 

 and disappears into the water, to emerge in a moment or two with 

 a small fish in its bill. 



The terns, of which there are five breeding- species in the British 

 Islands, are all migrants, and come to us in spring. The arctic tern 

 ranges farthest north : it is the most common species on the coasts 

 of Scotland and its islands ; its most southern breeding-station is at 

 the Fames, off the coast of Northumberland. It breeds in com- 

 munities sometimes numbering thousands of birds. The nests are 

 placed very near each other, often within half a yard, among scanty 

 grass and herbage, or on the shingle and sand of the beach, and 

 sometimes on the bare rock. Two or three eggs are laid, greatly 

 varying in their ground-colour, olive, buff, greyish brown, stone, and 

 other tints being found; and the spots and blotches of blackish 

 brown and grey may be few or many. The young birds are at first 

 covered with a yellowish down with dark brown spots, and are very 

 active. When the nesting-ground is entered the birds rise up, and 

 hover in a dense cloud above the intruder's head, their united 

 powerful screams producing an extraordinary noise, like that of 

 the sea on a shingled beach when the withdrawing wave drags back 

 the pebbles with shrill and grating sounds. 



In September and October the arctic tern migrates to warmer 

 regions. 



