I9I4- Humphrey?. — Rcscatc Tcni brecdiiio in TrcLand. 17 
THE ROSEATE TERN BREEDIN(} IN 
IRELAND. 
BY GEORGE R. HUMPHREYS. 
For a considerable n amber of years, the Roseate Tern, 
Sterna Dougalli Mont., has been exchided from the hst 
of Irish breeding birds. The late Mr. Ussher in his report 
on the birds of Clare. Island^ stated that the Roseate Tern 
had been rarely met with in Ireland for the last fifty years, 
but referred to a specimen shot on Clew Bay on the 3rd 
August, 1904. which would rather lead one to suppose that 
the species was breeding in Ireland at that time. In this 
connection Kirkman's " British Bird Book," page 65, 
contains the following passage in regard to Ireland : " There 
is a possibility that it still nests among the other terns on 
the west coast, although proof is still wanting." The only 
other specimen I can hnd recorded is a male which was killed 
by striking Hook Tower lighthouse, Co. Wexford, on the 
30th April, 1897. This bird is in Mr. Barrington's collection, 
having been sent him in the flesh. ^ 
It gives me much satisfaction to be in a position to put 
on record the nesting of the Roseate Tern in Ireland in 
1913. Unfortunately the time at my disposal was very 
limited, and my observations were confined to two \isits 
to the colony, both of short duration. 
During the third week in July, while visiting a breeding 
colony of Common and Arctic Terns, I was attracted, almost 
immediately on my arrival, by the alarm-note of a tern 
which was fl^'ing around along with the commoner species. 
This note was a harsh " crake," and quite different from the 
note of any tern I had previously heard. The bird kept 
uttering its harsh note the whole time it was flying overhead, 
and consequently I had not much difficulty in picking it 
out, when I at once noticed it had a decidedly lighter 
coloured plumage than the rest, and appeared of a more 
slender build. By the aid of a pair of prism ghisses I 
Pyoc. R. Iiu's/i Acad., vol. xxxi., part 20, page 39. 
^ Ussher and Warren, " Birds of Hvland," p. 319. 
