THE COMMON TERN. 287 



and terns breed on the narrow strip of ground adjoining it, we 

 found the tern to be S. Idrundo, of which there were considerable 

 numbers, but having killed three required as specimens, we 

 ceased to distui'b them further. Several of their nests were seen, 

 none of which contained more than three eggs, this being the 

 usual number. I looked particularly to these, as I had done on 

 other occasions, with reference to the determination of the species 

 from the eggs alone, as we can frequently find them when the 

 birds will not approach sufficiently near for their species to be de- 

 termined. Some ornithologists consider the t^^'g of S. hirundo to 

 be rather larger and more round in form than that of S. arctica, and 

 these were certainly about the roundest of tern^s eggs that I had 

 seen. This character may therefore be generally correct, though 

 the difference between the eggs of the two species is by no means 

 well defined. As a breeding-place of the black-headed gull, the 

 locabty is more particularly noticed. The common tern breeds 

 on several other islets of this great lake; among others, on 

 Scawdy, near Maghery."^ Close by its margin, at Massareene 

 Park, on the 31st of July, 1846, several of these birds came under 

 my notice, one of which dipped frequently into a little shallow 

 piece of water amid the sands that could only have contained the 

 smallest of fish — the stickleback. Off Shanescastle Park, on the 

 following day, several appeared fishing, either singly or in com- 

 pany, and even a couple sometimes produced such a noise by their 

 continual cries that, until they came in view, it was imagined there 

 might be a "play" of them at a shoal of fish; — (August 3) it was 

 beautiful to observe a number, during a lovely sun-set, fishing and 

 descending from a considerable height in a spacious bay to the 

 southward of Toome. The fi'y of perch or of pollans {Core- 

 gonus pollaii) were probably their food, as a quantity, especially 

 of the former, lay strewn upon the beach; — the refuse of 

 nets, which were busily plied this evening. (August 5) At 

 Eam's Island I learned, that not a tern had a nest there this 

 year on account of their haunt being covered with water at the 

 breeding season. In 1850, about three pair were seen here by a 



* Rev. G. Robinson, 1850. 



