LAKID^. 301 



island expressly to look for them. The Common Tern breeds upon tho 

 k^cilly Islands, on some places on the coast of Cornwall, as at Newlyn, 

 where Dr. Bullmore states that eggs were found and taken by his cousin 

 Mr. "W. Bullmore, of Trescobeas ; also on the Che&il Beach on the Dorset 

 coast, and on ISkokholm Stack, a small island off the south-west coast of 

 Pembrokeshire, where we were informed by some boatmen there were 

 about twenty nests, ilr. Cecil Smith states that the most advanced of 

 the young birds found by him when he visited the Chesil Beach on 

 August 5th, 18b3, " hid themselves amongst the pebbles and stalks of a 

 wild pea (Lathyrus maritlmiis), which I believe is rather local, but which 

 grows on parts of the Chesil Beach. The yonug birds hid amongst these 

 peas, with their grey backs just showing above the leaves; they looked 

 like largish grey pebbles, of which there were a good many about. They 

 kept perfectly still, so still indeed that we were sometimes in danger of 

 treading on them " (Zool. 1883, p. 454; ISSS, p. 20(3). 



The adults of this beautiful species of Tern have a delicate salmon 

 tinge upon the breast, which soon fades away from skins and mounted 

 specimens. 



[Roseate Tern. Stema dougalU, Mont. 



The recorded instances of the occurrence of this species in Devonshire 

 are ail either erroneous or open to doubt.. " One in North Devon, 

 September 1859 " (G. F. M., ' Naturalist,' 1866. p. 360). The reference 

 there given to the 'Zoologist,' 1859, p. 6761, is wrong, the Gull-billed 

 Tern and not the Koscate Tern being mentioned by us, and we now 

 believe this specimen was a young Whiskered Tern, but unfortunately 

 the skin no longer exists (^1. A. M.). Another recorded by the late 

 Mr. Cecil Smith as having been shot at Exmouth in the autumn of 1863 

 or 1804 was incorrectly determined, as that gentleman himself informed 

 us. Mr. Gatcombe mentions two which were said to have been seen in 

 riymouth Sound in April 1874 (Zool. 1874, p. 4105). 



Prom various causes this most graceful and elegant of all our British 

 Terns has within the last half-century become extremely rare as a British 

 species, and most of its old nesting-stations have been abandoned. In 1840 

 it was quite a common nesting-bird, according to Mr. llodd, on the Scilly 

 Islands, but there have been none there now for j^ears, nor is the bird ever 

 seen at the present day off' the Cornish coast. The only recorded Cornish 

 example we know of is one stated by Dr. Bullmore to have been shot on the 

 Swanpool at Falmouth in 1 846. In former years this Tern was also obtained 

 on the Dorset coast, and Mr. Mansel-Pleydell speaks of seven having been 

 killed at one shot at Weymouth. We know of no Somerset examples ot' 

 the Koseate Tern any more than we do of any from Devonshire. A very 

 fine adult, picked up dead some distance inland in the neighhourhood of 

 Pembroke in 1885, is the only recent specimen of which we have know- 

 ledge in the S.W. of England. The ])ersistent persecution l)y oggcrs has 

 doubtless l)een the cause of the present sf-arcity of tliis beautiful .species. 

 It is said to Vje very abundant iu many parts of Amoricu.J 



