326 
LARIDvE. 
appeared to have a nest. The drowning of the Hooded Crow 
by the Terns of Hunie has abeady been related in the notes 
upon that species. Indeed there are very few birds which 
defend their breeding-grounds more tenaciously. Two or three 
of them will make straight for a great gull some five feet 
across the wings, and send him off almost distracted with 
their screaming into his very ears. They usually nest in com- 
pany, and no sooner does a human intruder appear than the 
whole of the birds rise and hover above his head, uttering 
their well-known cries, and not ceasing to show their dis- 
pleasure until he has left the spot. So likewise a perfect 
mob of them will gather round a wounded Tern in the water, 
almost hustling the shooter as he picks it up. 
A favourite situation for the deposition of eggs is a sandy 
or gravelly beach, or a ledge of a rugged bank which has been 
broken by the winter gales. In such places the eggs are 
merely laid in a hollow scraped out by the bird ; but if the 
soil of the bank happens to be wet, a small quantity of gravel 
is interposed. Often, however, the eggs are laid among the 
short grass further inland, and then the hollow is almost 
always found to contain a few pieces of dead weeds or dry 
grass by way of lining. Occasionally, as at Hunie, the spot 
selected is the dry gravelly soil among stones and rocks some 
distance from the beach. In such situations I have seen 
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of eggs, but only in a few in- 
stances have I seen any attempt at lining to a nest* The Tern 
is a late breeder, eggs being seldom found before the middle of 
June. There is great variety in the markings of the eggs; 
some are finely spotted, others are largely blotched ; in some 
the ground colour is pale bluish green, in others it is deep 
* The Arctic Teru will often nest upon the hare rock, if nest that can he 
called which consists of a broken egg-shell and a couple of young birds, lying 
on the flat surface of a skerry just clear of the wash of the water. In such a 
position I remember to have seen one of the little creatures in the very act of 
emerging from his cradle, while his elder brother sat looking at him in a 
whimsical fashion, being himself only a little squab of down with a few dark 
spots about him and a big pair of eyes. — E d. 
