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been hatched, their boldness is perhaps greater than that of any 

 other sea-bird; they have not infrequently touched my head with 

 the tips of their wings in flying past. 



A colony of this species usually selects as its breeding-haunt 

 some outlying islet, whose surface is scored with fissures. Here 

 they deposit their eggs in the cracks or crannies, and on the rock 

 itself, without the slightest trace of a nest. Early in July 1871 I 

 visited several holms and islets in the Folden Fjord, south of 

 Helgeland; the number of eggs laid here by each bird was 1 or 

 2, rarely as many as 3. In East Finmark it breeds even on the 

 freshwater-lakes in the interior up to Karasjok and the Altenfells, 

 af a distance of about 140 English miles from the sea. 



During the breeding-season this species rs often exposed to 

 the predatory attacks of Lestris parasitica; whenever one of these 

 hungry prowlers ventures to approach the haunts of a colony, it 

 is boldly encountered by the enraged inhabitants, who generally 

 succeed in driving it off. 



Sterna fluviatilis, Naum. 



The occurrence of this species north of the Polar Circle has 

 not yet been sufficiently authenticated. 



In Lærdal a few pair are found breeding on holms in the 

 river, a few miles up the valley; on the lakes of the interior they 

 are often met with, but never breeding. 



Lar us ca nus, Lin. 



Resident everywhere along the coast, and in greater numbers 

 than any other species of the genus. 



Single individuals occur on most of the freshwater-lakes; on 

 Lake Mjøsen, I have seen it for several summers past. It is found 

 breeding on the mountain-lakes, at an altitude of 3000' above the 

 sea-level, and a very considerable distance from the coast, in Bygdin 

 in the Valders-fells, for instance, and on the banks of most of 

 the tårns and mountain lakes of that district. 



In June 1872 Mr. Landmark found it nesting about Jæderen, not 

 only on the banks of the freshwater-lakes, but in the marshes some di- 

 stance from the sea. In the summer of 1868 a pair of these birds were 



19* 



