VOL. VIII.] BLAKENEY POINT TERNEEY. 259 



abandoned or not ; so that the total of A & B, if these 

 be considered as a single type, must be increased by 30. 



In 1914 the results were : A, 0. B, 70. C, 450. 

 There were a good many more nests that we did not 

 touch, as time was limited. 



In regard to the making of a nest. I was entertained 

 whilst photographing a Common Tern last year by 

 another bird of the same species making a nest within a 

 few feet of the tent. I could watch all her movements 

 through a convenient peep-hole. On the first day that 

 I noticed her, she had deposited an egg in a shght 

 excavation. Soon afterwards she began to fetch pieces 

 of Psamma off my hiding tent and to place them all round 

 the excavation. With the second day there came a 

 second egg, and more maram* bents were rifled from my 

 tent. In the morning they were all radiating unbroken 

 from the centre. Later on in the day she began breaking 

 them with her beak and tucking them in all round. On 

 the following morning there was a third egg. More 

 Psamma was added, and the nest was then in its most 

 ragged stage. It was not till two more days had passed 

 that she had all the bents tucked in. The final result 

 was large but perfectly tidy. 



The bird in this instance got her materials from my 

 tent. There was a supply at hand and she used it — a 

 supply that had been suddenly brought there after the 

 bird that I was photographing had started incubating — 

 and she had used no materials (Fig. 10). This illus- 

 trates an interesting characteristic of the bird which I 

 have noticed to be very constant on the Point. If stuff 

 is handy the Common Tern makes a nest. If it is not 

 she refrains. There are, of course, exceptions. But if 

 one wants to find a well-made nest, one goes at once to 

 the drift-line or else to the Dunes. On the drift, out of 

 some hundreds of clutches that I have seen there during 

 several years, only two were found without any material. 



* Maram grass is the popular name of the Psamma arenaria, the 

 most effective of British dune-forming plants. 



