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times, at low water, they search the shores for sand-eels at that season. When the young have 

 been fed for some time by their parents after leaving the breeding-places, they begin to separate 

 from them, and at length live mostly apart. By the middle of September they have all left our 

 northern coasts, and by the end of that month they have disappeared from the southern. Some 

 individuals occasionally remain during winter in the south of England." 



Mr. Howard Saunders has kindly contributed the accompanying note : — " This species nests 

 abundantly along the shingle between Eye and Dungeness, where its congener (8. hirundo) has 

 often been asserted to breed ; but for this I am not aware that there is the slightest foundation. 

 At the Fame islands both species are found, but they always nest in separate colonies. Off the 

 Lancashire coast, on the Island of Walney, I found both species breeding; the neighbouring 

 Island of Foulney was only frequented by three or four pairs of 8. hirundo. In Ireland the same 

 remarks apply to colonies on the islands and coast ; but whereas 8. fluviatilis nests abundantly at 

 Strangford and other inland loughs, I never knew 8. hirundo deposit its eggs away from salt 

 water. I found it breeding abundantly on the flats. It was nesting in numbers on the mud 

 banks and flats off San Carlos de la Eapita, near the mouth of the Ebro, where I obtained 

 specimens. I also noticed it in many parts of the Mediterranean, and procured an example in 

 full breeding-plumage at Malaga. In Holland the ornamental fishponds, and those which our 

 ancestors would have called ' stews,' are frequently covered over with netting to prevent the 

 Terns from taking the fish ; and one day at Utrecht I was much amused by watching the 

 ineffectual ' stoops' of some young Terns who had not yet had time to gain experience; for this 

 was in September." 



In his work on the birds of Borkum, Baron Droste states: — "They nest on the dune 

 hillocks, which are covered with short grass, their nests being placed sometimes close to each 

 other, and sometimes apart, but never in such concentrated numbers as those of the Sandwich 

 Terns. They do not build any regular nest, but merely line a depression in the ground with dry 



sea-grasses They live, like all Terns, on small fishes, shrimps, and small crustaceans. In 



East Eriesland Gasterosteus spinachia seems to form their chief food. They do not appear to 

 fish in the open sea so much as the shallow parts of the shore and inland pieces of water. They 

 move the wings sometimes quicker, sometimes slower, always, however, powerfully, so that the 

 body rises and falls in regular movements. They move slowly about, looking carefully after their 

 prey, and, after fluttering a little, drop down on it, dipping half the body into the water, so that 

 the wings and tail appear like three points left out. They devour their prey on the wing, but 

 often carry it about a short time in the beak." 



Another kind friend, Mr. Alfred Benzon, of Copenhagen, writes us as follows : — " The 

 Common Tern breeds on all our inland lakes and deep penetrating fjords, whereas the Arctic 

 Tern is only found on the coasts. The eggs of the two species resemble each other much, and 

 are subject to considerable variation. This species lays three oval eggs ; and I possess specimens 

 of a light bluish-white, unspotted, to dark coffee-brown strongly marked varieties. The ground- 

 colour is generally greyish yellow, often running into greenish or brownish, very seldom bluish 

 white. The shell-markings are bluish grey, and the overlying surface-spots varying from brown 

 to black, and either distributed over the entire egg or collected at the larger end, sometimes 

 forming a ring round it. Of the eggs I possess in my collection, from Denmark, Germany, and 



