The Zoologist— April, 1866. 181 



were in the aforesaid bays. I found two or three nests with four eggs, 

 and took one clutch, three of them wonderfully warm-coloured eggs, 

 richly blotched, like some of the Norfolk plover; the fourth was 

 scrawled all over, and utterly unlike the rest. Some of the nests 

 were very prettily ornamented with bits of shell ; others mere de- 

 pressions in the sand. I confess to having great doubts as to all four 

 eggs being the produce of the same bird : I have also twice found four 

 eggs in a clutch of terns, arctic or common. 



Prowling along the shingle, just above high-water mark, a new sharp 

 note caused me to raise my eyes from the ground, and I saw a lesser 

 tern coming straight at me, as if he meant mischief, then, seeming to 

 think better of it, he veered off, and I saw him no more. The next 

 instant Jack exclaimed " Eh, I never saw sparlings' eggs like these 

 afore," and stooping down I lifted from the bare shingle, without an 

 apology for a nest, the prettiest pair of eggs I ever set eyes on. The 

 ground culour was then of a lively bluish green, but alas, they soon 

 faded, and are now in nowise distinguishable by their beauty from 

 many others in my cabinet. I never found another nest, nor saw the 

 birds again, on this island ; we were equally unsuccessful on the North- 

 umbrian coast, where this species is now extremely rare. 



It was a glorious sight upon a glorious day: to the north Black 

 Combe towered to the clouds; to the left the Isle of Man loomed 

 dimly thro'ugh the summer haze : we had left behind the " hacketting" 

 of the gulls, and the shrill whistle and litter of the sea-pie, the harsh 

 " cree" of the hovering terns, with now and again the plaintive note of 

 the ring dotterell mingled with the pleasant ripple of the sea. Far 

 away upon the sand banks we watched the shellducks leading their 

 broods, but of the roseate tern, the special object of my search, there 

 was as yet no trace ; in fact, the higher the suu rose the more the terns 

 seemed to follow his course, rendering it utterly impossible to dis- 

 tinguish their species. 



A couple of ring dotterells' nests of four eggs each (" grunling " is 

 the provincial name) had rewarded our search, but as they were 

 evidently hard-set we did not take them, and returned along the shore, 

 cautiously keeping outside the breeding-places of the gulls. Suddenly 

 a harsh " crake" caught ray ear, and there above our heads, easily dis- 

 tinguishable by their more slender form, bathed in an indescribable 

 pink glow, hovered a pair of veritable roseate terns. I gazed at these 

 objects of my search until my eyes ached, but they mounted higher 

 and higher, and amongst the score of nests in the space of half an acre 



