28 
Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
Nestung.— Clothed m greyish down with a sandy-buff tinge, 
the head somewhat white, and all the upper parts mottled with 
dusky blackish, very indistinctly; below white; bill yellowish • 
feet greyish-brown, the webs paler. ’ 
Characters.— The Sandwich Tern is the largest of our indi- 
genous Terns, the wings exceeding twelve inches in length. 
The feet are black, and the bill is black with a yellow dp. 
Ihe feathers of the nape are pointed and form an elonf^ated 
crest. ^ 
Range m the British Islands.— This species is a summer visitor 
to Great Lntain, and still breeds regularly on the Fame Islands 
as well as in a few other localities in England and Scotland 
on botlyhe east and west coasts. In several places, such as 
me Scilly Islands, where the species was formerly known to 
breed, it is no longer seen during the nesting season. Mr 
Ussher says that in Ireland it is “only known to breed at 
the present day on one small lake near ballina, in Mayo where 
It is strict y preserved. It has disappeared from its ’former 
breeding place on the Rockabill, Co. Dublin.” 
Range outside the British Islands.— The following extract from 
Mr. Saunders’ recent volume on the Laridce gives the ran<^e 
of the Sandwich Tern with a preciseness which leaves me 
nothing to improve upon “Atlantic and North Sea coasts 
from the Orkneys southwards to the Mediteranean Black Sea 
and Caspian (breeding;; in winter, along the west coast of 
Atrica to the Cape of Good Hope and up to Natal, down the 
Red .Sea, and acro.ss Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf, 
Mekran coast, and Karachi. East side of America from 
southern New Eng and to British Honduras, not breeding to 
the northward of I'lorida; only found on the Pacific side on 
the coast of Guatemala and vicinity, where the continent is 
very narrow. 
Habits.— Seehohm thus describes a visit to the Fame Islarrl.5 
in 1870 when the .Sandwich Terns ivere nesting in some nuiS 
bers:— On a gently sloping sand-bank leading up to the 
centre of the island, which was merely a mass of shelving- rod- 
perhaps thirty feet across, there was a large colony of the 
Sandwich Tern, In the thick of them there must have been 
