The Common Tern. 37 



Family— LARID^E. Subfamily— S TERNINAZ. 



Common Tern. 



Sterna fluviatilis, Naum. 



THE Common Tern is the most widely distributed species of the genus along 

 our shores ; especially is it abundant in Ireland and in the more southern 

 parts of Great Britain. 



It occurs in summer in suitable localities on the islands all along the western 

 side of Scotland (except the Outer Hebrides), as far north as the Firth of Clyde, 

 the Sound of Mull and the Island of Coll. " In our cruise [in the Outer Hebrides] 

 in June and July," writes Harvie-Brown and Buckley, in their volume on the 

 fauna of that region, "we may say we utterly failed to identify a single Common 

 Tern anywhere to the north of the Island of Coll, and we paid more careful 

 attention to the comparative distribution of the species than usual, even going so 

 far as to shoot specimens at most of the localities visited where Terns were 

 breeding." 



On the northern counties of England and the eastern counties of 

 Scotland it is very abundant, and is met with as far as the latitude of the Moray 

 Firth, breeding on the shores, in the estuaries and far up the river valleys, even 

 also on the inland lakes. It is to be met with on all the coasts of Ireland and 

 on its interior loughs. 



The largest colonies in Britain are on Walney Island in the west, and on 

 the Fame Islands on the east coast. 



North of the boundaries we have given, its place is taken by the Arctic Tern 

 — the species next to be described. 



Beyond the British Isles the Tern is found on the coasts, estuaries and 

 inland lakes throughout northern Europe; in most of the Mediterranean islands 

 and in Palestine — where Canon Tristram, to his surprise, found it breeding in the 

 Lakes of Antioch, with " no trace," as he says, " whatever of the White- 

 winged Black Tern, so common on the coast, and of the Whiskered Tern, which 

 would certainly be found in such localities in Algeria or Tunis." The Common 

 Tern is found throughout all temperate Asia, north of the Himalayan Range. It 

 migrates in winter to India, Ceylon, and along the coasts of West and South 

 Africa. 



