410 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



SANDWICH TEEN. 



Sterna cantiaca, Gmel. 



Sir W. Jardine knew the Sandwich Tern as a visitant to the 

 Solway Firth (1840), but was not acquainted with any breed- 

 ing stations, though an impression exists among some of our 

 oldest naturalists that this Tern in their earliest experience 

 sometimes nested both on Rockliffe marsh and Solway Flow. 

 Whether this impression was rightly founded or not, the 

 Sandwich Tern in recent years has been entirely absent from 

 the estuary waters of the Esk and Eden, and though examples 

 have been seen on the coast north of Whitehaven, the species 

 is restricted in the breeding season to Ravenglass and Walney 

 Island. The best-known colony in former days, and even 

 latterly, has been that which existed at the north end of 

 Walney, among the Black-headed Gulls, estimated in 1880 to 

 consist of nearly forty pairs of Sandwich Terns. 1 This colony 

 was broken up by repeated robberies, and the birds nested 

 therefor the last time in 1889. But in 1879 Mr. W. A. 

 D urn ford noticed that three pairs nested for the first time at 

 the south end of the island, and, though we could not find any 

 Sandwich Terns on the island in 1891, yet I am assured by 

 Mr. Hey wood Thompson that he found about half-a-dozen pairs 

 nesting on the south side of the island in 1890. But the 

 Ravenglass contingent, which has nested among the sand-hills 

 on the north side of the estuary of the Esk, Mite, and Irt for 

 some years, established itself within the memory of Farren the 

 fisherman, a keen observer, who remembers the founders of the 

 colony, consisting originally of about ten pairs. This colony, 

 which I have known intimately for some years, is on the 

 increase, and has possibly embodied in its ranks the birds that 

 have been accustomed to breed at the north end of Walney. 

 In 1888 Farren told us, on their ground, that fifteen pairs 

 were then nesting. In 1889 Mr. F. P. Johnson examined 

 four types of eggs, and considered that they belonged to twenty- 

 one pairs. On the 12th of May 1891 Mr. F. B. Whitlock 

 1 Field, June 19, 1880. 



