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being found only near the sea during passage, or when it does not find any more suitable locality 

 in the immediate vicinity. Nor does it appear to like clear water, but affects marshy places 

 where there is an abundance of mud, and which are tolerably well covered with rushes, sedge, 

 and aquatic vegetation of various sorts, and especially where here and there there are small open 

 pieces of shallow water, and the bottom is soft and muddy. It is seldom seen swimming on the 

 surface of the water, but more frequently on the wing ; for it flies with extreme buoyancy, and 

 appears to be untiring in its flight. When resting, it seats itself on one of the small patches of 

 partially dry land in the marsh, or on the masses of tangled aquatic herbage which form small 

 floating rafts in the water. It is stated by some observers to walk with more ease than' its 

 allies. 



It feeds on small fishes, aquatic insects of various kinds, dragonflies, and leeches. Canon 

 Tristram, who found it breeding in Algeria in the nests of the Eared Grebes, says that they were 

 then feeding chiefly on a large hairy caterpillar which covered the neighbouring marshes in 

 thousands, and adds that they were also plunging into the lake in quest of the frogs and newts 

 with which it abounds. I have never had an opportunity of inspecting a breeding-colony of this 

 Tern, and am indebted to Lord Lilford for the following notes on the nidification and habits : — 

 " We found this Tern breeding in great numbers in company with Sterna nigra on the small 

 lakes of Santa Olaya, in the Coto de Donana, during the first fortnight of May 1872. The nests 

 are merely a few scraps of weed pulled together and placed on the open water, with no attempt 

 at concealment ; in almost every instance the water had penetrated the bottom of the nest, and 

 the eggs were quite wet. These Terns appeared at that time to be feeding principally upon 

 leeches and dragonflies. In one instance we found four eggs in a nest ; but the usual complement 

 is three. The cry of this species much resembles that of Hydrochelidon nigra, and still more 

 that of Hydrochelidon leucoptera ; but there is a difference. It was amusing to see these birds 

 dash in a body after the Harriers {Circus ceruginosus and C. cineraceus), which are abundant in 

 the above-named locality, and no doubt destroy great numbers of the eggs and young of the 

 Terns." Canon Tristram, who found this Tern breeding on the large lakes in Algeria, says that 

 he found a whole colony breeding in the nests of the Eared Grebes, without having at all 

 repaired the nests, which could only have been evacuted by their constructors a few days 

 previously, as he saw hundreds of young Eared Grebes paddling about and diving in the open 

 lake with their parents. Mr. A. Anderson gives (Ibis, 1872, p. 82) some interesting notes on 

 the nidification of the present species in India, which I transcribe as follows : — " When stationed 

 at Fyzabad, Oudh, in 1867, I went out one July morning with my friend Mr. Naher, of the 

 Oudh Commission, on a naturalizing excursion ; and we had hardly gone two miles beyond the 

 town when our attention was attracted by the outcry of a vast assembly of these handsome 

 Terns, that were flying over a jheel or swamp about a mile in circumference, and within a stones 

 throw of the main road and of a village which overlooked the piece of water. 



" My friend, who had a pair of glasses in his hand, called out that they were building nests 

 on the swamp, which was one mass of tangled weeds and aquatic creepers &c. I was, of course, 

 somewhat incredulous of their building floating nests, as Jerdon mentions that they lay on the 

 ' churs ' of the Ganges, i. e., sandbanks. We were, however, soon assured that they were all 



