LARIDiE. 
■m 
NATA TORES. 
LAR1D+E. 
LESSER TERN. 
Sterna minuta. 
PLATE CXXXIV. FIG. I. 
Tiie eggs of the Lesser Tern, which are more rare, 
are by no means so variable as those of the rest of the 
genus. The bird is much less common; and, as far as 
I have had the means of observing it, very local during 
the period of incubation. 
There is but one place on the Northumberland coast 
where they have yet been ascertained to breed,—a small 
space of gravelly sand upon the mainland, nearly oppo¬ 
site Holy Island. To this locality, about thirty or forty 
pairs annually resort, depositing their eggs upon those 
small patches of gravel which are most like them, both 
in size and colour; and so strong in many instances is 
the resemblance, that an unpractised eye would find great 
difficulty in detecting the eggs at first sight. Mr. J. Han¬ 
cock has carefully brought away the eggs, and the gravel 
upon which they rested; and even thus, without the 
spreading beach around them, to add to the delusion, the 
resemblance is very close. The eggs, which are merely 
laid in a slight depression in the surface of the gravel, 
are sometimes two, but more frequently three, in number. 
In a ramble along the coast with Messrs. Hancock, we 
had the pleasure of finding, at the place I have just men- 
