182 The Zoologist— April, 1866. 



round us, it was useless to attempt to identify their eggs, and I may as 

 well say at once that this was the only time I was able to distinguish 

 this species with perfect certainty on Walney or at the Fame 

 Islands. 



The following morning commenced with a Scotch mist, which soon 

 became a downright wetting rain, but at this I rejoiced, as I hoped it 

 would induce the terns to sit closer upon their eggs, which on a hot 

 summer day neither they nor the oystercatchers seem to do : in the 

 tropics it is just the reverse. To a certain extent my expectations 

 were realized, but unfortunately a party of navvies had crossed at low 

 water on the previous afternoon, and robbed the greater part of the 

 nests we had left, making the birds very wild ; the colony of terns 

 amongst which I had seen the roseate tern had been completely 

 " harried." In one of the pools left by the sea we captured a young 

 shellduclc, and might easily have caught another of the same brood, 

 but they were too young to be reared, and after a short inspection we 

 allowed our captive to join his brethren on a distant sand-bank. Jack 

 succeeded, after lying in ambush for upwards of an hour, in shooting a 

 fine shelldrake, and we found a nest in a burrow, but it was too deep to 

 get at without a spade, and as we saw a broken egg-shell at the 

 entrance we persuaded ourselves that the young were hatched out. A 

 pair of Sandwich terns fell victims to their boldness, and, dazzled as 

 I was by gazing at the whirling mass of birds around me, I fancied, 

 as I noticed the pinky hue of the fallen bird, that I had got a roseate 

 tern at last : brief illusion ! so far as that bird was concerned, I had 

 miserably failed at Walney. 



Determined to leave no stone unturned, on the following day we 

 took train to Peel, and, the tide being out, we walked over to Foulney 

 Island, a mere bank of shingle with a Utile flat grass land at the north 

 end, where it almost touches the south end of Walney. Here it was 

 that Mr. J. Hancock, in years gone by, found the roseate tern com- 

 paratively abundant {vide Mewitson, vol. ii. p. 479, 3rd edition). A few 

 terns, oystercatchers and ring dolterells were all the birds we saw at 

 first, but near the middle of the island we met an individual with a gun 

 who had taken a nest of ring dotterell, shooting one of the birds, also 

 an oystercatcher and an arctic tern, obtaining also a nest supposed to 

 be of this last. Observing that he did not speak of these birds by their 

 provincial names, I asked hi;n some questions respecting the various 

 terns, especially if he knew the roseate tern, " Sir," replied he, " there 

 is not a bird that frequents the shores of Great Britain I don't know." 



