306 LAHIDjE. 



broads. 1 have not yet heard of its breeding in Central or Southern 

 India. 



They lay in July and August. As a rule, their nests are placed 

 towards the centre of some large jheel, where the water is deepest 

 and no rice or rush grows, but where the surface is paved with 

 the broad leaves of the water-lily and the lotus. On these they 

 construct a shght platform of rush and weed, wound round and 

 round in a circular form. Four seems to be the full complement 

 of eggs. 



Dr. Jerdon is mistaken in his statement that Mr. Brooks found 

 this species breeding in the large churrs on the Ganges. Mr. 

 Brooks disclaims having ever said anything of the kind ; the only 

 species of true Terns that do thus breed are S. seena, S. melano- 

 gastra, and S. sinensis, i'ar in the north-west, in the rivers of the 

 Punjab, a few pairs of S. anglica remain to breed, and on the 28th 

 April, 1870, as already noticed, I took an egg of this species on a 

 sandbank of the Chenab two miles below Wuxeerabad. S. hyhrida 

 is essentially a marsh Tern, while with us S. anyliea is not. The 

 former lays in July and August. 



I hardly think that even a tithe of tbe Whiskered Terns that 

 visit us during the cold season remain to breed ; the great majority, 

 I beHeve, leave the plains and breed either in the hills, as in the 

 Cashmere lakes, or else go further north. I only know of three 

 or four places where they breed in tbe plains — I mean that I have 

 myself seen — and these were in the Etawah, Mynpooree, and 

 Meerut Districts. Messrs. Brooks and Anderson have each, I 

 believe, found two or three of their breeding-haunts, but no others 

 of my correspondents appear to have obtained the eggs ; and when 

 we remember how very plentiful this Tern is in many localities 

 during the winter, the conclusion that the great mass leave us to 

 breed elsewhere is irresistible. 



This Tern is very common during the summer in Cashmere. 

 The birds were breeding when tbe first Yarkand ^lission passed in 

 June, and many nests were taken in a marsh close to Sirinugger, 

 about a mile from the " Visitors Eeach " and on the opposite side 

 of the river. The nests were made of green rushes, placed in 

 amongst rushes, reed, and floating weeds, and were very scanty. 

 A year or two later Mr. Brooks and Major Cock took num- 

 bers of their nests on the Wuller Lake early in June, and Dr. 

 StoUczka found them laying a second time there on the 26th July. 

 All the three breeding-places I have seen were precisely alike. I 

 quote an old note recorded at the time about one of them : — 



'^August 14th, Achulda Jheel, Zillah Etawah. — In the centre of 

 the jheel, where the water was deepest and no rice or rush grew, 

 but where the lake was paved with lotus and lily-leaves, a small 

 colony of these birds had established itself. On the broad leaves 

 of the lotus they had buOt loose slight nests of rice and rush- 

 stems, and in these we found their eggs. Only two nests con- 

 tained three eggs each, the others two and one. All the eggs were 

 perfectly fresh. The birds had obviously only just begun to 



