NOTES AND QUERIES. 277 



Common Scoter (CEdemia nigra) in Cheshire. — On April 1st my 

 friend Mr. T. Hadfield saw six Scoters — five adult drakes and a brown- 

 plumaged bird — on Tatton Mere. On the next day, when I went with 

 him to the mere, one of the birds, an old drake, was diving for food 

 close to the bank. It did not associate with the Tufted Ducks and 

 Pochards which were swimming near it, and when we put the birds up 

 it still kept apart, and settled on the water again at some distance from 

 the other fowl. The other Scoters had apparently left the mere, but 

 the single drake remained — at any rate, until April 3rd, when it was 

 seen by Mr. T. A. Coward. This species is a rare visitor to the 

 Cheshire meres ; indeed, I know of only one previous occurrence, and 

 that, oddly enough, was at Tatton. An adult drake is preserved in 

 the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, which was shot on the mere, after 

 heavy weather, in October, 1890. — Charles Oldham (Knutsford). 



A New Irish Breeding Haunt of Sandwich Terns. — Up to the 24th 

 May last the only known breeding haunt in Co. Mayo of this species 

 of Tern (Sterna cantiaca) was that on the small Lough of Eathroneen, 

 between Kilalla and Ballina. However, my friend Mr. H. Scroope, of 

 Ballina, when Salmon-fishing on Lough Conn, occasionally saw an odd 

 bird flying about, that gave no clue to a breeding-haunt. In 1903, 

 Mr. Hugh S. Gladstone, being over here photographing nests and eggs, 

 found two or three nests, with eggs, of Sandwich Terns amongst a lot 

 of Black-headed Gulls' nests on an island in Lough Conn, but these 

 were evidently only straggling birds from some larger haunt, for last 

 summer Mr. Scroope failed to find a breeding-haunt anywhere on the 

 lake. However, this season I decided on trying my luck in a quest, 

 and, arranging with young Mr. C. Scroope for the use of his boat and 

 men, on May 24th we drove to the lake, and began our search. The 

 first island we came to had a large colony of some five or six hundred 

 Black-headed Gulls, but no Terns. We then rowed to another island, 

 when we found a small colony of ten or twelve pairs of Common 

 Gulls, with nests and eggs ; but no Terns either. Our next visit was 

 to a long low island holding a colony of perhaps one hundred and fifty 

 to two hundred Black-headed Gulls ; but still no Terns. I then quite 

 despaired of finding the Terns, though Mr. C. Scroope said that we had 

 one more chance of seeing them on an island a mile or so away ; 

 so we rowed on, and when the boat approached the island quite a 

 swarm of seven or eight hundred Black-headed Gulls rose from the 

 shores and points, among which I was delighted to recognize a few 

 Sandwich Terns. We landed, and walked among hundreds of nests 

 with eggs, but until we passed the stony shore and came to a flat 



