VOL. vn-] NOTES. 147 



COMMON TERNS BREEDING IN ESSEX. 



Since writing the account of the colony of Common Terns 

 {Sterna hirundo) in north-east Essex {antea, p. 87) my 

 attention has been called to an article by Mr. T. Hepburn in 

 the Zoologist, 1910, p. 137, on the " Nesting of the Common 

 Tern and Black -headed Gull in Colchester Harbour." 

 Mr. Jones has interviewed Mr. Hepburn and ascertained 

 from him that the Ternery there described is the same as 

 that which I reported. Mr. Hepburn thinks it has been 

 continuous since his discovery of it, but does not know how 

 long it had existed before then. W. B. Nichols. 



SANDWICH TERNS IN CARNARVONSHIRE. 



The two records in Mr. H. E. Forrest's Fauna of North 

 Wales (pp. 370-71) led me to suppose that the Sandwich 

 Tern (Sterna s. sandvicensis) was an extremely uncommon 

 bird in the northern half of the Principality ; but, while 

 admitting that the species may have been rare say ten years 

 ago, the numbers I have seen in Llandudno and Conway 

 Bays this year (1913) make me feel that the bird has 

 been overlooked during the past few years in North Wales. 

 The three birds which I watched in the Conway Estuary 

 on May 21st, 1913, constituted a new record for the county. 

 Their loud double-note drew my attention, and on getting 

 closer to them I could see with my glasses their long, lemon- 

 tipped black bills and black legs, and readily appreciated 

 their superior size. I saw five others in May, four in June, 

 seventeen in July, and four or five times the latter number 

 in August. One flock which I saw at Deganwy on August 3rd 

 contained thirty birds. We naturally wonder whether the 

 Terns were Ravenglass birds. Richabd W. Jones. 



Sqtjacco Heron in the Outer Hebrides. — ^Mr. R. Clyne 

 {Scot. Nat., 1913, p. 211) records an adult male Squacco 

 Heron {Ardeola r. ralloides) as seen by him on June 5th, 

 1913, at a loch near the Butt of Lewis, where it remained 

 for over a week. 



Scaup Breeding in the Outer Hebrides. — ^In the 

 Scottish Naturalist, 1913, p. 211, Mr. Heatley Noble states 

 that a Scaup {Nyroca m. marila) hatched off a brood of 

 young on one of the Outer Hebrides in June, 1913. A 

 friend of his saw the female with the brood, and sent 

 Mr. Noble an addled egg together with the down. The 

 keeper also stated that it was by no means the first time 

 a Scaup had hatched off on this property. 



