THE COMMON TEEN. 
287 
and terns breed on the narrow strip of ground adjoining it, we 
found the tern to be 8. hirundo, of which there were considerable 
numbers, but having killed three required as specimens, we 
ceased to disturb them further. Several of their nests were seen, 
none of which contained more than three eggs, this being the 
usual number. I looked particularly to these, as I had done on 
other occasions, with reference to the determination of the species 
from the eggs alone, as we can frequently find them when the 
birds will not approach sufficiently near for their species to be de- 
termined. Some ornithologists consider the egg of 8. hirundo to 
be rather larger and more round in form than that of 8. arctica 3 and 
these were certainly about the roundest of tern’s eggs that I had 
seen. This character may therefore be generally correct, though 
the difference between the eggs of the two species is by no means 
well defined. As a breeding-place of the black-headed gull, the 
locality is more particularly noticed. The common tern breeds 
on several other islets of this great lake; among others, on 
Scawdy, near Maghery.* Close by its margin, at Massareene 
Park, on the 31st of July, 1846, several of these birds came under 
my notice, one of which dipped frequently into a little shallow 
piece of water amid the sands that could only have contained the 
smallest of fish — the stickleback. Off Shanescastle Park, on the 
following day, several appeared fishing, either singly or in com- 
pany, and even a couple sometimes produced such a noise by their 
continual cries that, until they came in view, it was imagined there 
might be a “ play” of them at a shoal of fish; — (August 3) it was 
beautiful to observe a number, during a lovely sun-set, fishing and 
descending from a considerable height in a spacious bay to the 
southward of Toome. The fry of perch or of pollans ( Core - 
g onus pollan) were probably their food, as a quantity, especially 
of the former, lay strewn upon the beach; — the refuse of 
nets, which were busily plied this evening. (August 5) At 
Rands Island I learned, that not a tern had a nest there this 
year on account of their haunt being covered with water at the 
breeding season. In 1850, about three pair were seen here by a 
* Rev. G. Robinson, 1850. 
