SMALLER SOOTY TERN. 
29 
on an average a nest per square 5’ard. The birds, which were not 
then sitting (it was the 3rd of June), soon discovered that their 
colony was being invaded, and flew in hundreds over us for a 
short time.” besides taking the eggs of other species, such as Eider 
Ducks, Gulls, &c., he states that he saw more than two hundred 
eggs of the Sandwich Tern. “ In the year when I found them 
m still greater abundance, they had chosen the same locality 
lor their colony ; but they were so much molested that they 
soon deserted the place and moved their quarters to the grass- 
covered island adjoining, where their eggs where in such pro- 
usion that we inadvertently trod on many of them. In this 
locality many of the birds had arranged the scattered bits of 
aeaa weed which were lying about into the semblance of a 
mo rn ^'^'dition to the Krr-ce, which seems, in a more or less 
modified form, to be common to all the Terns, the Sandwich 
which may be represented by the syllables 
middle of 
hnUm!,' • described by Seebohrn as merely a slight 
clinne G bare sand, in diameter and depth of the dimen- 
wf^rA ^ 9^^cse -plate, and he says that the nests and eggs 
hv distinguish from the sand and fine gravel 
surrounded. The nests are, however, 
metimes more substantial structures of bents. 
vervli^andT''^ three in number, rarely the latter. They are 
Sneraflv clav" g.ound-colour is 
shade, Ae^poTs °nd'^ 01 ochreous-btifT, deeper or lighter in 
often with the purnlish ™^‘^'"Ss being black or dark brown, 
quite as plain L die nvorm very distinct and 
examples the siiot= 1 ®Pots and blotches. In many 
the whole egg vvhile 
confluent blotdmr LS for their bold 
Ais, 2 0-2-25 inches ; diain., i-SS-i'S- 
THE SMALLER SOOTY TERN. STERNA AN^ESTHETA. 
nrmVrSR cd. Yarrell’s Brit. B. iii. p. 565. 
note (1884); id. Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxv. p. loi (1895.) ' 
