168 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
sandy hollows always scuttled into cover, where they would 
crouch down, but I never saw one attempt to excavate a bed — 
such as the young Sandwich Tern uses for concealment. 
A nestling Sandwich Tern, a day old—or two at the most— 
which was crouching just outside a nest on June 21st, had legs 
and feet liver-coloured, the down of the upper parts from bill to 
tail greyish buff, each plumule being tipped with black ; down on 
chin the same colour; the rest of the under parts white. Nest- 
lings three or four days older than this had legs and toes 
greenish black, with dull vermilion webs; bill dull vermilion, 
with blackish tip. A young bird which had acquired its first 
plumage, but was still unable to fly, had the feathers of the head 
from bill to nape greyish buff, finely barred with black, those 
of the mantle broadly barred with pale buff and black, a broad 
white collar on the neck; the white breast and belly were 
suffused with a pale pink tinge; the chin was white, but a trace 
of the greyish-buff colour of that region in the nestling persisted 
in the form of an ill-defined torque of grey down on the fore 
neck; the primaries and wing-coverts were frosty grey, each 
primary being tipped and margined on the inner web with a 
narrow band of white; the rump was white, a few of the feathers 
being barred with pale buff and black ; legs and feet dark lead- 
colour; bill yellowish horn; tongue and inside of mouth lemon- 
yellow. Two others, a little older than the one from which this 
description was taken, had lost all trace of the ill-defined torque 
on the fore neck, and had black bills which already showed signs 
of the yellow tip that characterises mature birds. 
When ejected from the little beds which they hollow in the 
sand young birds not quite able to fly ran along the ground with 
wings outstretched. Their wings, however, sooner or later 
caused them to get entangled in the marram-grass, where they 
were readily recaptured. The young Black-headed Gulls, though 
they sometimes raised their wings, never ran with them widely 
spread, and consequently got through the marram-grass and 
into cover much more quickly than the Terns. 
On the nesting-ground one has good opportunities of com- 
paring the appearance of the Common and Sandwich Terns as 
they fly overhead in a clamouring cloud with the Black-headed 
Gulls. The tail of the Sandwich is, compared with that of the 
