THE BLACK TERN. 
327 
brownish olive. In the same nest I have seen eggs differing 
considerably in ground colour, — dull olive gxeen in one case 
and olive brown in another, — each covered with small spots of 
dark brown and neutral tint. The average measurement is one 
inch seven lines by one inch two lines. 
The food of the Tern is chiefly small fish, but the stomach 
often contains beetles, moths, and various other winged insects, 
in pursuit of which whole parties of these beautiful birds may 
occasionally be seen skimming above the pastures on fine 
summer evenings. 
[For any one who would see the Arctic Terns really at home 
there is nothing to compare with a visit to the Vie Skerries, 
a singularly wild and interesting cluster of low rocks in the 
open Atlantic, some miles out from Papa Stour, on the west 
coast of the Shetland mainland. Here they abound, in com- 
pany with other sea-fowl, — rarely, indeed, disturbed by the 
presence of man ; and so thickly is the surface of the little flat 
islets strewn with their eggs, that it is in some places difficult 
to walk without crushing them, in the bewilderment of the 
mobbing with which the visitor is greeted. Here, too, the seals 
rise close to the rocks, and gaze at you with their calm, search- 
ing eyes. It would be hard to find any place that equally 
gives you the sensation of having by accident got into another 
planet. — Ed.] 
THE BLACK TEEN. 
Sterna fissipes. 
One single example of this bird is on record as having been 
seen in Shetland. It was observed by Thomas Edmondston 
a few years prior to 1844, as recorded in the “Zoologist” for 
that year, p. 466. The Black Tern does not appear to have 
been met with in Orkney. It must necessarily be an extremely 
rare visitor to the islands, or from its marked individuality it 
would have attracted notice. 
