418 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



was not quite successful, his impression that all the birds at 

 the north end were Common Terns was independently corro- 

 borated by my experience in 1891. The only adult Tern that 

 we found dead was a Common Tern, and the colony at the 

 south end likewise consists principally of Common Terns, but 

 the Arctic Terns are present undoubtedly, and seem to nest 

 upon the outside of the main colony of Common Terns. Birds 

 of this genus are notoriously fickle, and the Arctic Tern is 

 especially changeable in its movements, so that it may be 

 numerous in one season and hardly represented in the next. I 

 have never identified the Arctic Tern among the birds that 

 breed at Ravenglass, though in 1885 my search for that species 

 was assisted by Mr. H. Saunders, who has long been recognised as 

 the highest living authority upon the family. The Arctic Tern 

 is absent from the Sol way Firth except during .the seasons of 

 migration. 



LITTLE TERN. 



Sterna mi?iuta, L. 



The Lesser Tern arrives at its breeding-grounds about the 

 beginning of May, but only begins to lay towards the close of 

 the month. On the 2d of July in 1891 I examined eighteen 

 nests of the Lesser Tern on the beach at Walney Island, upon 

 which the following notes were made. The first nest was a slight 

 hollow in coarse pebbles, lined with fine pebbles, containing an 

 egg and a chick. The nest of another pair was lined with a 

 few dry stems of grass, and contained one egg; another egg 

 Mas a little distance from the nest to which it apparently 

 belonged. A third nest in the shingle contained two eggs. A 

 fourth nest was a shallow depression in the sand and contained 

 three eggs. The next four nests all contained two eggs apiece, 

 and were only a few yards from one another. The ninth and 

 tenth nests contained two eggs each, but the next two nests 

 held only one apiece. The thirteenth and fourteenth nests 

 were placed in sand near large stones, and held two eggs each. 

 The next held a chipped egg and a newly hatched chick. The 

 sixteenth was a nest of three eggs. The seventeenth nest con- 



