The Roseate Tern. 3r 



to the surface of the water in pursuit of sand-eels . . . The birds at first 

 consume these themselves, but later on carry them to their young. The young 

 appear on the scene very soon after their education is finished, arrayed in the 

 mottled plumage of their early youth, and old and young may then be seen 

 fishing near the dune until the end of the summer." 



Family— LARIDAZ. Subfamily— S TERNINAL. 



Roseate Tern. 



Sterna dougalli, MoNT. 



THIS very beautiful Tern was discovered on the 24th July, 18 12, by Dr. 

 McDougall, of Glasgow, in the Cumbrays, two flat rocky islands in Milford 

 Bay, in the Firth of Clyde, and was described in the following year by Colonel 

 Montagu, in the Supplement to his " Ornithological Dictionary," already referred 

 to on a former page. " On these Islands the Common Tern swarmed, and," says 

 Montagu, " the first of the new species was shot, by accident, by one of the Doctor's 

 companions, and happening to fall close to him on the rocks he was attracted by 

 the beautiful appearance of its breast " ; and, as Dr. McDougall pointed out, it was, 

 in the air also, easily discerned " by the comparative shortness of wing, whiteness 

 of plumage, and by the elegance and comparative slowness of motion ; sweeping 

 along or resting in the air almost immoveable, like some species of the Hawk ; 

 and from the size being considerably less than that " of the Common Tern. 



Of the specimens which formed the types of this species, one is in the British 

 Museum, and two are in the magnificent collection, bequeathed in 185 1 to the city 

 of Liverpool by Lord Derby, and now in the Free Public Museums. One of the 

 latter passed into the Xlllth Earl's celebrated Museum, by presentation to him by 

 Colonel Montagu, and two were purchased by him at Dr. McDougall's sale, as the 

 following MS. note, preserved in Liverpool, in Lord Derby's hand, indicates : — 



