BIRDS 411 



visited this colony, at my suggestion, and counted thirty- four 

 nests of the Sandwich Tern, which were 'apparently just com- 

 mencing to lay.' Later on Mr. H. E. Eawson visited Raven- 

 glass, and counted no fewer than seventy-one nests. It is 

 conjectured that the birds which formerly bred on Walney, but 

 have now deserted that island, may probably have joined the 

 ranks of those which breed at Eavenglass, whence this unusual 

 augmentation of their numbers. Whether the birds will ever 

 return to Walney in our time is problematical, but as long ago 

 as 1843 the species bred there abundantly, since James Cooper 

 writes to T. 0. Heysham on August 12, 1843 : 'It was rather 

 strange that you saw so few Sandwich Terns, for Mr. Adamson 

 says they many [sic], not upon Foulney but on Walney Island, 

 where they called them Cat Swallows, but he also states that 

 Foulney was the chief place for the other four kinds, and that 

 the Roseate was quite plentifully This tern arrives early on its 

 breeding-grounds. In 1890 a single pair made their appear- 

 ance at Eavenglass on the 29th of March, while in 1884 the 

 birds were not noticed until the 23d of April, so that there is 

 considerable variation in the movements of different years. But 

 they always breed early, scratching a slight depression in the 

 sand, laying during May, and hatching a few of the young ones 

 on the last days of the month. The larger proportion of nestlings 

 hatch in the middle of June ; fresh eggs and nearly feathered 

 young can both be taken at the end of June. The eggs vary 

 in type, and the birds do not all nest in the same corner of the 

 sand-hills; in 1890 they bred at Eavenglass in three separate 

 divisions. The young, on the other hand, do not vary at all 

 from their fellows in the colour of their first downy covering, 

 but they are cleverer at concealing themselves among the sand- 

 bents than the other species of Tern. The Sandwich Terns 

 leave us in August, the young birds then wearing the prettily 

 variegated dress of immaturity. During the few months which 

 this Tern spends upon our coast its chief food undoubtedly 

 consists of small fry and sand-eels, as may be verified by any 

 one who carefully studies the birds as they fly over their nests, 

 often carrying small fish. It also diets on small shell-fish. A 

 female bird was killed by some mishap in May 1887; its 



