302 



blackish grey line along the inner web by the shaft, the first quill with the outer web blackish grey, the 

 rest with the outer web pale pearl-grey ; tail greyish white ; rest of the plumage pure white ; bill black 

 with the tip yellow ; iris dark brown ; legs black. Total length about 14 - 5 inches, culmen 2 - 35, wing 

 12 - 1, tail 6-8, outer rectrices extending 3 - 4 beyond the central ones, tarsus l'l. 



Adult Female. Resembles the male in plumage. 



Adult in winter (Albania, 12th October) . Differs from the bird above described in wanting the black crown, 

 the forehead being white, and the crown from the eye backwards, with the nape, being white closely 

 spotted with black ; before the eye is a blackish spot ; rest of the plumage as in the summer dress. 



Nestling (Russia, 1st August) . Crown and nape black, closely marked with pale buff; back and wing- 

 coverts pearl-grey tinged with buff and boldly barred and mottled with black; quills dark hoary grey 

 margined with white ; tail blackish grey, also margined with white ; rest of the plumage white. 



Like most of the sea-birds, the present species of Tern has a very extensive range, being found 

 in Europe, Africa as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, and America as far south as Brazil. 



In Great Britain it breeds on various parts of the coast, but has of late greatly diminished 

 in numbers. According to Mr. A. G. More it bred (in 1865) in Cornwall, occasionally in South 

 Kent, in Essex, and probably also in North Kent at the mouth of the Thames, in Lancashire, 

 on the Farn Islands, and Isle of Coquet off Northumberland, and on the coast of Cumberland ; 

 but in some of these localities it is no longer met with in the breeding-season. Mr. Cordeaux 

 states that it is not uncommon off the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coasts in the autumn, when 

 flocks appear on their passage southward ; and he adds that it is the first to move southward 

 along the coast in the autumn — in large flocks, both old and young together, about the middle of 

 August, preceding both the Arctic and common Tern in their autumn migration. Mr. Hancock, 

 who speaks of it as a spring and autumn migrant on the coasts of Northumberland and Durham, 

 adds that it breeds at the Farn Islands, and a few years ago bred abundantly on Coquet 

 Island. According to Mr. Robert Gray (B. of W. of Scotl. i. p. 465), " In bygone years it was 

 no uncommon thing to see flocks of this fine species fishing in shallow water on many parts 

 of the coast. Serious inroads, however, have been made upon its breeding-haunts on both the 

 east and west coast, and in places where formerly their eggs could be seen in hundreds it is 

 now a rare occurrence to find more than the contents of one or two nests. Some of the best- 

 known haunts, indeed, including the rocky islets near the Bass Rock on the east, and some 

 islands on the Frith of Clyde on the west, have become entirely deserted ; and it is questionable 

 whether there is any breeding-station in Scotland at present equal to those of twenty years ago. 



" There is a small colony of Sandwich Terns on Inchmoin, a low flat island on Loch Lomond, 

 where they have been found breeding along with other species, and where they will probably 

 increase if unmolested. In the time of Pennant this species seems to have bred on the isles of 

 Loch Leven, in Fifeshire. Speaking of the birds in his ' Tour in Scotland,' he calls them ' Great 

 Terns ' — the same name he gives those he saw on the Farn Islands, where the Sandwich Tern 

 still retains its ground, although in greatly reduced numbers. 



" I have of late years observed stray birds of this species frequenting the shores of East 

 Lothian and Fifeshire ; and it is to be hoped that the recent Act for Preservation of Sea-birds 



