The Little Tern. 5 1 



admiration to every lover of nature. You may see a pair coming up from a 

 distance, flying at the height of a few yards over the waves, their long wings 

 winnowing the air and impelling them in starts, as it were, as they wend their 

 way in undulating and wavering movements. Suddenly their flight is arrested 

 by a large pool left on the sands by the retiring tide; with quick beats of their 

 wings, they hover stationary, or but slightly shifting place, and with downward 

 pointed bill seem intent on something which they perceive in the water. One 

 drops, but not like a stone, dips, but with upraised wings, and rises with a small 

 fish in its bill. The other is similarly successful. Onward they proceed, now and 

 then emitting a shrill cry, and with gentle beats of their wings. Far ahead is a 

 flock engaged in picking up their prey, and onward they speed to join their 

 kindred. At many miles from their breeding places they may be met with, and 

 yet they generally do not wander very far, as they can procure an abundant 

 supply of food along the sands. Sometimes they may be seen sitting on the 



smooth water, and occasionally resting on the sands At the mouth of 



the [Mill-Den] Burn [near Aberdeen] is a flat recess in the sands, the banks 

 retiring to some distance from the general line of the coast, and there, in spots 

 where the little heaps of dried sea-weed had collected the dried sand about them, 



the colony had settled The eggs are very large for the size of the bird, 



rather broadly ovate, but somewhat pointed." 



The Little Tern takes its departure from our shores early in the autumn. 

 About the end of August, or early in September, old and young in flocks, recruited 

 by birds from various districts of our own area and from places beyond the British 

 Isles, begin to move southward, and for several weeks they may be observed, by 

 travellers crossing the English Channel, winging their way towards their winter 

 quarters. 



