The Arctic Tern. 43 



eastern coasts, at one or two points, but nowhere abundantly except on the Fame 

 Islands, where there were, in 1892, on two members of the group, known as the 

 Knoxes and the Wideopens, more than one thousand nests. The Arctic Tern, how- 

 ever, is especially fickle in regard to its breeding place, it may be in very scanty 

 numbers in, or even absent entirely from, a locality where the previous year it 

 nested very abundantly. They behaved in a most unaccountable manner one year on 

 the Fame Islands, as one ornithologist has recorded. " They inhabited their usual 

 breeding spots, laid their eggs and sat on them until a few were hatched, when 

 suddenly every Arctic Tern left. They first left the ' Longstone,' the island furthest 

 from the shore ; about a week afterwards they left the ' Brownsman,' which is one 

 of the middle islands ; and ten days afterwards they left the ' Knoxes and Wide- 

 opens ' in the same way. There were very few young birds hatched on the 

 'Longstone' and 'Brownsman' when the old birds left, but a large number on 

 the ' Wideopens,' and not a single young Arctic Tern lived to fly away. The old 

 birds stopped about the coast for some time, and seemed in a very weak condition 

 During all this time the Sandwich Terns seemed to flourish as well as 

 ever, and their young were all hatched out and took to the wing in as large 

 numbers as usual." The writer concluded that " they lived off different food, 

 chiefly sand-eels, while the principal food of the- Arctic Tern seems to be a very 

 small fish like a tiny herring." Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley have also 

 recorded that in Hoy, in the Orkney Islands, " is a flat on which, twenty years 

 previous to 1888, no Terns had bred. About that time a colony took possession 

 of it and bred for fifteen successive years, when they deserted the place." 



On the west coast of England the chief resort of the Arctic Tern is Walney 

 Island, off the Lancashire mainland. 



In Ireland this species is a regular summer visitant, and is more abundantly 

 met with on the west coast, though it is by no means infrequent on the eastern 

 side It nests on Lough Carra and Lough Mask, Co. Mayo, its sole fresh water 

 breeding place in Ireland. 



In Scotland it is the most common species of Tern, and breeds (sometimes in 

 association with the Common Tern) along all its coasts— especially of the islands — 

 as far north as the Orkney and Shetland Islands. 



Outside Britain the breeding range of this species is very wide; it nests all 

 round the circumpolar regions of the northern hemisphere, up as high as within 

 eight degrees of the pole, and perhaps higher, and as low as the 50th parallel of 

 latitude on the European and the 42nd on the American side. During winter it 

 spreads along the Mediterranean and down the western coast of Africa, rounding 

 the Cape to the eastern side; in the western hemisphere it migrates as far south 



