VOL. XIV.] NOTES ON THE LITTLE TERN. 



77 



afterwards, the ceremony of feeding being precisely as already 

 described.* 



A few weeks later and the birds are pressing and scratching 

 simple hollows in the sand, laying or sitting in numbers. The 

 eggs are laid at daily intervals, but incubation starts before 

 the second egg is laid (observations on four nests). The 

 period of incubation still remains uncertain, the almost daily 

 interference with the nests Tendered a sufficient number of 



Little Tern : The male's pose while his mate swallows the fish. 



(Nest No. I.) 



{Photographed by T. Lewis.) 



accurate observations impossible. At a nest which contained 

 three fresh eggs on May 30th one egg was chipping on the 

 iSth of June, but next day the nest, like most of those remain- 

 ing on the beach, was robbed. The period at this nest would 

 have been twenty to twenty-cwo days. During the days 



* In the account up to this point it is presumed that the male and 

 never the female brings fish, for where the distinction of sex becomes 

 clearer from subsequent acts, the carrier of fish is always to be identi- 

 fied as the male. 



