LARID^. 3G5 



Lighthouse, October 19th, 1886, is the only one which has ever occurred 

 in the Kingsbridge district (E. A. S. E., MS. Kotes). Adults have been 

 occasioDally shot on Torbay. 



This species only very rarely visits the North Devon waters, and we 

 have never obtained an example from them in complete plumage, although 

 we have occasionally seen large Terns flying over the mouth of the ]3arn- 

 staple river which we concluded were adult Sandwich Terns, and the 

 Eev. Marcus Rickards informs us that he also has once or twice come 

 across large Terns in the same locality without being able to obtain a 

 shot at them. In the more favoured bays and estuaries in the south of 

 the county the Sandwich Tern occurs pretty regularly every ai;tumn, 

 although even there examples of adults in complete plumage are rare in 

 comparison with immature birds. Of the latter Mr. Cecil Smith's 

 collection contained several examples shot by himself off Exmouth. 



Mr. E. H. Rodd states that a few pairs of the Sandwich Tern visit the 

 Scilly Isles in the summer and nest there, and that the bird is not very 

 rare oft' the Cornish coast. It no longer nests with the other Terns on 

 the Dorsetshire beaches as J^lr. Mansel-Pleydell considers it did formerly, 

 but is seen in Poole Harbour and at other places on the coast pretty 

 regularly both in Apiil and again in the autumn. The opaque waters of 

 the Bristol Channel off" the North Somerset coast are very rarely visited 

 by Terns, and we have no knowledge of any Somerset example of a 

 Sandwich Tern. 



The eggs of the Sandwich Tern vary greatly and are very beautiful. 

 A few of these fine Terns are said to nest on the coasts of Kent, Essex, 

 Lancashire, and Cumberland, on the Earne Islands and on Coquet Isle, 

 oft' the coast of Korthumberland, on one of the islands in Loch Lomond, 

 on a few places on the east coast of Scotland, and on a lough in the North- 

 west of Ireland ; but it is only too probable that some of these stations are 

 deserted at the present day, and that the birds continue to resort only to 

 those where they are protected from the ravages of the exterminating 



[Sooty Tern. Sterna fuliginosa, Gm. 



Mr. Foot, the bird-stuff'er of Bath, has in his possession a verj^ perfect 

 example of the Sooty Tern, which he has shown us, caught alive near 

 Bath after stormy weather in October 1885. Mr. J. E. Harting, in his 

 ' Handbook of liritish Birds,' p. IT'', records three other British specimens, 

 one of them said to have been obtained on the estuary of the Axe, nt'ar 

 Axminster, and recorded by the Kev. J. B. Sehvood, in the 'Field,' 17th 

 July, 1801). This, Mr. Harting considers, may have been only a Black 

 Tern. '' The death of Mr. Sehvood has uiifort unately prevented a solution 

 of the doubt." 



The Sooty Tern inhabits the West India Islands, Central America, the 

 South-Sea Islands and Australia, (ireat numbers Itreed on Ascension 

 Island, and we possess some beaut ilul jthdtographs of the '' Wide-awako 



