280 
LARimE. 
to the island and shot four roseate, four common, and two arctic 
terns. He obtained the eggs of each species, twenty-three alto- 
gether, the whole of which were evidently laid on that or the 
preceding morning; those of the roseate being placed in small 
cavities beneath blocks of stone. No young were seen. A 
broken egg of the Sandwich tern, and three birds of that species, 
were observed. There were considered to be at least seventy or 
eighty roseate terns there, and twice that number of common and 
arctic combined, as they could not be distinguished on wing. 
In June 1850, the roseate tern was shot at Lambay Island, and 
it has been procured in the bays of Drogheda and Dublin ; such 
birds being probably wanderers from the Bockabill. 
On questioning Mr. Glennon, in May 1837, respecting this 
species, he stated that in the month of June, a few years pre- 
viously, he had received in a fresh state, from the coast of Wex- 
ford, about fifty specimens. Capt. Walker, of Belmont, near the 
town of Wexford, in a letter to me dated November 19th, 1836, 
remarked — In the spring, different sorts of terns are com- 
mon on the sand-banks here, and the nest of the roseate is inge- 
nious : the sand is slightly hollowed, and, to prevent the eggs 
rolling away, it is surrounded by a small hoop about three inches 
in diameter, made of bent (a strong grass which grows on the 
sand hills), and put very neatly together.” 
At Boundstone, on the coast of Galway, the Bev a G. Bobinson 
saw a tern in July 1844, which, from its call, mode of flight, 
general appearance, and difference from those of the common 
and arctic species, he thought must be the roseate, which was 
familiar to him from a recent visit to the Bockabill. 
Such is all the information that can at present be given of this 
elegant species ; but scanty as it is, that supplied to us respecting 
the roseate tern on the coasts of England and Scotland is not 
more full. The only breeding-haunts on the English coast that 
I find positively recorded, are the Earn and Coquet* Islands, off 
Northumberland, and Eoulnev Island,! off Lancashire ; and on 
* Hewitson’s ‘Eggs of Brit. Birds.’ 
f Ibid. On authority of Mr. John Hancock, of Newcastle on Tyne. 
