16 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



neck, the flanks and the abdomen deep black ; the forehead, the sides of the face 

 and neck, the axillaries, the vent, the under tail- and under wing-coverts white ; the 

 whole of the back, the rump, the upper tail-coverts, the tail, the wing-coverts and 

 the throat varying from grey to slate-grey ; the chest and breast darker. The 

 white- shafted primaries dark slate- grey (except when quite unworn and " frosted ") ; 

 the " inner webs of the outer pairs of primaries white on the upper and greater 

 part of the inner webs" (Saunders). Bill dark red; feet scarlet, fading after 

 death to orange. Length ioj inches ; wing 9/3 ; tarsus 'g. 



The Whiskered Tern may be looked for, in England, in the early summer, 

 when it is on its northern migration to its breeding stations, and again in the 

 autumn when on its return southward to its winter quarters. 



Like the other Marsh-Terns, the Whiskered Tern builds in large colonies in 

 inland lakes, ponds and marshes ; constructing a nest similar to that described 

 under the two preceding species. This Tern will, however, sometimes not take 

 the trouble to make a nest of its own, but will, as Canon Tristram observed in 

 Algiers, occupy, as a colony of them were doing on the large lakes there, the 

 nests of another bird — the Eared Grebe — just as they had been shortly before left 

 by the young of their builders. Mr. Anderson has given an interesting account 



of the breeding of this bird in Fyzabad, in July, 1867 "We had hardly 



gone beyond the town," he writes, "when our attention was attracted by the outcry 

 of a vast assembly of these handsome Terns, that were flying over a gheel or 

 swamp, about a mile in circumference and within a stone's throw of the main road 

 and of a village which overlooked the piece of water. My friend, who had a pair 

 of glasses in his hand, called out that they were building nests on the swamp, 

 which was one mass of tangled weeds and aquatic creepers, etc. . . . We were, 

 however, soon assured that they were all actively engaged in carrying long wire- 

 like weeds (some of them two feet long) from different parts of the gheel, and 

 making huge floating nests on the surface of the water. On the 7th July we 



again visited the place, taking a small canoe with us The circumference 



of some of the nests I measured ranged between 3^ and 4 feet, and they were 

 about 4 inches thick. They were composed entirely of aquatic plants, and so 

 interwoven with the growing creepers that it was quite impossible to remove them 

 without cutting at the foundation of the structure. 



"The eggs, as may be expected, are subject to the same endless varieties as 

 those of the 5. hirundo (Common Tern) and 5. ardica (Arctic Tern), but differ in 

 being smaller, less pointed, and in the general colour being much lighter." 



Canon Tristram notes that the Whiskered Tern remained through the winter 

 and spring in small flocks on the Sea of Galilee, till the birds acquired their 



