ercit betel Dralrey MaeE Ne alls? alot sr E thas B 33 rater Tin Se een enhs uaragrmette i mea eo a : % stitatioeteeae oe ety Seactrta katte win ret araeaenet hte! pared ok wee eens see : SAS ep Thiaeote ED . = ics . + ; gta veatinat aetiatat af ahwet Tf at tow veh pena et . ey > wate nt sci et atecne tera sh taster eat ne sheath rately! otk ae: tA ‘ = rouesecaca aires ; aiastetnnanie i pak Reta et pot samabeatat Pte) abate tate: ate ante it Lae: tee tt veh! eile ciabatta hates apace ataliened osanennet fel Wiety tec ve re “ rake Ren eee Sac aac rigbaiiebe bad pine hor Tes . : * Saige = siete } piieranat vidio 7 ae ea sneha omseoneenset anak eee Re Tad ne eer ony ae ae te wae! ame QL 670 Gl B&f Yb ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY New York STATE COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE AND HoME ECONOMICS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Libra io Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000050090 PUFFIN. Fics. 469—479 BLACK-THROATED DIVER. 471—472 RED-THROATED DIVER. 473 GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 474 Fic. 475 STORM PETREL. LITTLE GREBE. FULMAR. Manx SHEARWATER. FORK-TAILED PETREL. 7 aes) NOGNO” GNY TINH ‘SOHLIT * TXX Id PL. XXIl. Fic. 457—462 GUILLEMOT. RICHARDSON’S SKUA. 452—454 RAZORBILL. 455—456 BLACK GUILLEMOT. FIG. 451 Fics. 448—449 KITTIwAKE GULL. 450 GREAT SKUA. FIGs. Fics. 436—437 ARCTIC TERN. FIGs. 443—444 ComMMoNnN GULL. 438—439 LITTLE TERN. 445 HERRING GULL. 440—442 BLACK-HEADED GULL. 446 GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL Fic. 447 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. FIGs. 421 GREENSHANK. FIGS. 426—427 BLACK TERN. 422—423 BLACK-TAILED GODW3:T. 428—431 SANDWICH TERN. 424 CURLEW. 432—433 ROSEATE TERN. 425 WHIMBREL. 434—435 COMMON TERN. BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR > NESYTS AND HKeaas IN SIX VOLUMES ORDER GAVIA. By HENRY ©, FORBES, UL.Dy FRCS. AL.84 ALBO.U,, AUTHOR OF “A NATURALIST’S WANDERINGS IN THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO,” &c. ORDER PYGOPODES. By O. V. APLIN, F.L.S., M.B.O.U., AUTHOR OF “THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.” ORDER TUBINARES. By REV. H. A. MACPHERSON, M.A., M.B.O.U., AUTHOR OF “THE FAUNA OF LAKELAND,” JOINT AUTHOR OF ‘‘FUR AND FEATHER,” SERIES, &c. ILLUSTRATED BY F. W. FROHAWK, M.B.O.U., F.E.S. VOLUME VI. BRUMBY & CLARKE, Limirep, BAKER STREET, HULL, AND 5, FARRINGDON AVENUE, Lonpon, E.C. Those marked thus, * not being recognized as British Birds, are not figured. Alca impennis Alca torda - *4Anous stolidus Arctic Tern - *Black-Eyebrowed Albatros Black Guillemot Black-Headed Gull Black Tern Black-Throated Diver - Bonaparte’s Gull - Briinnich’s Guillemot Buffon’s Skua *Bulweria columbinia - *Bulwer’s Petrel - *Capped Petrel Caspian Tern *Collared Petrel *Colymbus adamsti Colymbus arcticus - Colymbus glacialis Colymbus septentrionalis Common Gull Common Tern - *Diomedea melanophrys - *Dusky Shearwater Eared Grebe Fork-Tailed Petrel Fratercula arctica- *Frigate Petrel Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis CONTENT. 132 128 55 240 235 197 213, 158 221 221 221 Gelochelidon anglica Glaucous Gull *Gould’s Little Shearwater Great Auk Great Black-Backed Gull *Great Black-Headed Gull Great Crested Grebe Great Northern Diver - Great Shearwater- Great Skua - Guillemot Gull-Billed Tern - - Herring Gull - - Hydrochelidon hybrida - F{ydrochelidon leucoptera ffydrochelidon nigra fHydroprogne caspia Iceland Gull Ivory Gull Kittiwake Gull Larus argentatus - *Larus cachinnans - Larus canus - Larus fuscus Larus glaucus *Larus ichthyaétus - Larus leucopterus - Larus marinus *Larus melanocephalus Larus minutus - Larus philadelphia Larus ridibundus - 102 242 Lesser Black-Backed Gull - *Lesser Sooty Tern *Levantine Shearwater - - Little Auk Little Grebe - Little Gull Little Tern *Lusciniola sthwarzt *Madeira Storm Petrel - - Manx Shearwater - *Mediterranean Black-Headed Gull *Mediterranean Herring Gull Megalestris catarrhactes - Mergulus alle *Noddy - Oceanites oceanicus *Oceanodroma cryptoleucura Oceanodroma leucorrhoa *(strelata brevipes “(Estrelata hesitata - Pagophila eburnea - *Pclagodroma marina Podicipes auritus Podicipes cristatus- Podicipes fluviatilis Podicipes griseigena - - Podicipes nigricollis Pomatorhine Skua Procellaria pelagica Pufhan Puffinus anglorum *Puffinus assimtilis - Puffinus gravis - Puffinus griscus - - CONTENTS. 235 154 202 241 218 229 73 242 II2 154 55 218 218 213 239 238 108 221 192 181 202 188 197 116 208 158 229 236 226 236 “Puffinus obscurus - *Puffinus yelkouanus *Radde’s Bush-Warbler- Razorbill Red-Necked Grebe Red-Throated Diver *Rhodostethia rosea- Richardson’s Skua Rissa tridactyla Roseate Tern Sabine’s Gull Sandwich Tern Sclavonian Grebe Sooty Shearwater - Sooty Tern Stercorarius crepidatus - Stercorarius parasiticus- Stercorarius pomatorhinus *Sterna anestheta Sterna cantiaca Sterna dougalli Sterna fluviatilis Sterna fuliginosa - Sterna macrura Sterna minuta Storm Petrel Uria bruennicht Uria grylle Uria troile *Wedge-Tailed Gull Whiskered Tern *White-Billed Northern Diver White-Winged Black Tern Wilson’s Petrel Aema sabinii - 235 235 241 128 188 176 119 102 192 236 119 123 116 170 218 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. ORDER GAVIA. HE term Gavie, applied to the Order of birds to be described in the succeeding pages, and adopted from the occasionally used Italian word yvavia, signifying a Gull, is now restricted to the two families containing the Gulls and Terns (Laride/) and the Skuas (Stercorariide/), although on its first application it included several additional groups. These families form a very compact and easily recognized assemblage of birds, of which members of one or other of their genera must be familiar to every visitor to our coasts, lakes, marshes, cr river estuaries; for they are found in all such situations in almost every country in the world in the summer (of their latitude) and not a few of them throughout the winter also. Their nearest relatives are the Plovers. Though externally not very similar to them, many of the Zavide, the Terns especially, agree with them in many of their other characters, such as in the form of their wings, the colour of their eggs, and, chiefly, in their internal anatonly. Without going into details of their internal structure, the Gavie may be easily recognized. They are water-frequenting birds, with sharp or coulter-shaped VoL. V1. B 2 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs., beaks, long sharp wings, indicative of rapid and powerful flight, short legs, small feet and fully (instead of, as in the Plovers, partially) webbed toes. The tarsus is scutellated in front and reticulated behind. They possess an after shaft (or second smaller feather branching from the inner surface of the quill) to the body feathers: twelve tail feathers; one minute, concealed, and ten large primaries ; and in the secondaries (or quills on the w/na or cuditus) a blank occurs between the fourth and sixth feathers (although the fifth upper and under coverts are present), an unexplained feature, from which those birds exhibiting it have been designated Aguinto cubital. The young on emerging from the egg are covered with down, and able to run about when a few hours old. The Gaviee rarely lay more than three eggs, “spotted or scrolled with dark colours on a white, buff, or ochraceous ground” (Saunders). The Terns, Gulls, and Skuas are distributed over all the seas of the globe, and on most of the great inland lakes of its chief continents. As a rule they assemble in vast crowds during the breeding season, innumerable nests being frequently found within some restricted and favourite area selected by them as their nursery for the year. Many of them are migratory, coming to this country in the spring, and after breeding in the summer, returning in autumn to more genial quarters for the winter. Many also that winter far south of our latitude, are mere birds of passage at those seasons, their breeding places being still farther north than the British Isles. The Laride@ are divided into three sub families: the Terns or Sea-Swallows (Sternine/, the true Gulls (Zaring), and the Skimmers, Cut-waters, or Scissors- bills, as they are variously named, (Rhynchoping). The first two subfamilies are abundantly represented in Great Britain; but none of the Skimmers (of which there are five species all belonging to the one genus Ahéynchops) have even reached our shores. They are chiefly temperate and sub-tropical birds (inhabiting Africa, India, North and South America), remarkable for the peculiar form of the bill, which consists of two sharp blades, the upper half being freely moveable, while the lower and larger is vertically compressed to quite a thin plate. The Laride may be distinguished from the Stercorartide (Skuas) by the absence of a cere, or bare soft skin, at the base of the maxilla, and of the strong hook to the beak, which are characters conspicuous in the Skuas. In the latter family the toes are always much more fully webbed and the claws larger and sharper than amony the Gulls. Their breast bone also has only one notch in its broader margin instead of two, as in the Gull’s sternum. The Lavide vary much at different seasons of the year in the colour of their plumage—some of them taking four to five years to attain maturity. ORDER GAVIA. 3 The Terns (Sterning) have been divided by Mr. Saunders—our highest and most recent authority on the Gavie—into the following eleven genera, to which fifty-one species have been referred. 1.—fydrochelidon, or MArsu TERNS, with four species, of which three are recognized as having a claim to be included in the British list. They are small birds with grey plumage; the head with no prolonged gape-plumes; the tail slightly pointed and less than half the length of the wing; the bill less than twice the length of the tarsus, and their feeble feet having the long slender toes only half webbed. ‘They derive their name of Marsh-Tern from nesting in marshes, on tussocks or floating vegetation. 2.—Gelochelidon, or GULL-BILLED TERNS, containing but a single species (which visits our shores), with a stout beak, without gape-plumes; the tail less than half the length of the wing, its outer feathers pointed and longer than the others; the tarsus exceeding the middle toe and claw in length. 3.—ffydroprogne, containing one species only, which is a visitor to our shores, with no gape-plumes; the bill very deep and stout; the tail less in length than one third of the wing, its outer feathers being pointed and longer than the rest; and the tarsus shorter than the middle toe and claw. 4.—Sterna, the SEA TERNS, embracing thirty-three species from all parts of the globe, of which seven have bred on or visited Great Britain, with no gape- plumes; the bill compressed and slender; the tail, its outer feathers pointed and exceeding the rest in length, never less than half the length of the wing, and the tarsus never exceeding the length of the middle toe and its claw. 5.—Anous, or NopDIES, of which there are only two species, probably reducible (on the acquisition of additional specimens from the Eastern Pacific) to one, with sooty plumage and grey head; the strong and decurved beak longer than the middle toe and claw; the graduated tail, with the fourth pair of feathers from the outside, exceeding the rest in length. The Noddies are essentially tropical birds, but two or three individuals in their wanderings have visited our shores, their visits separated by long intervals of time. Representatives of the above five groups nest on, or have visited the British Isles; but no species of the remaining genera have yet been recorded from our area. 6.—Phethusa, containing but one South American species, with no gape- plumes; the bill large, stout, and twice as long as the tarsus; the tail shorter than half the length of the wing; the webs of the feet only slightly indented. 7.—Scena, having also only a single river-frequenting species, confined to India and Malacca; without gape-plumes; the tail, with its outer feathers pointed 4 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs, and longer than the rest, more than three-fourths the length of the wing; the tarsus shorter than the length of the middle toe and claw, and the bill very stout. 8.—Nenia, embracing one aberrant species, the INcA TERN, from the coasts of Peru and Chili; with conspicuous gape-plumes; the bill strong and decurved; the tail slightly forked, with its two outer feathers of about equal length. 9.—Procelsterna, containing two species confined to the Western Pacific, with grey plumage; the tail graduated and its two outer feathers shorter than the inner pair next to them, which are the longest in the tail; the foot long, its middle toe and claw exceeding in length the ridge of the beak. 10.—Mucranous embracing three tropical species, with the bill long and slender ; the tail graduated, with its third pair of feathers from the outside longer than the rest. 11.—Gygis, containing two species, almost restricted to the coral islands of the southern hemisphere, with bill stout and pointed, broad at the base and tapering upwards in front; tail graduated; toes long and slender, with deeply incised webs, the midmost toe being specially long. These beautiful pure white birds lay their single white egg in the clefts between the leaflets of the cocoanut palms, on the cavity of a branch of a tree, on a flat board, or ‘“‘anywhere where it will lie” as Mr. Saunders well observes. The Terns may be distinguished from the Gulls by their straighter and more slender bill, with mandibles of equal length, and their more or less forked tail. They are found in all parts of the globe, some nesting by the sea-shore, others in marshes, or by the sandy banks of rivers, not infrequently thousands of miles inland. From their forked tail, long pointed wings, swift flight, and graceful action while feeding from the surface of the water, they have derived, doubtless, the very appropriate name of Sea-Swallows, by which they are generally known. Terns, as has been stated above, are able to run about very soon after emerging from the egg, and are, at that stage of their existence, covered with down. In a few weeks this cradle covering is exchanged for their first immature —a more or less barred and mottled with blackish-brown—plumage, which, from the first autumn through the next spring and summer, loses (by fading of the colour and wearing of the feathers) more and more of the bars and mottlings, while during the same period acquiring a few dark feathers in the head, and will be replaced in the following autumn by the bird’s first winter plumage, and finally in its second spring by its first nuptial dress. Every succeeding year the summer (or breeding) plumage, on moulting at the end of July or beginning of August, changes into a less ornate, or winter garb, thus completing the cycle of the Tern’s ORDER GAVIA. ) plumage changes. Many species, however, appear to be capable of breeding before they have assumed their fully mature plumage. The Zaring are divided into seven genera, among which the fifty-four recognized species are relegated :— 1.—Nema, containing two species (circumpolar in habitat in summer, but ranging beyond the tropics in winter), with long wings, forked tail, and the hind toe free and very small. One of the species is recorded from Britain. 2.—Rhodostethia, in which only one—a circumpolar—species is included, at once characterized by its wedge-shaped tail, the two central feathers being nearly two inches longer than the others, a character unique among the Gulls. 3.—Larus, embracing, according to Mr. Saunders’ latest investigation of the group, forty-four species (a dozen of them being either resident in, or visitors to the British Isles), having the tail square; the bill, with linear nostrils, three times as long as it is deep; the hind toe free and well developed, and the lower third of the leg bare. In some species the mature birds assume a dark head in the breeding season; as a rule, however, dark feathers, or a speckled plumage, indicate immaturity. 4.—Gabianus, containing a single Australian species, resembling in outward appearance the Great Black-backed Gull, with a stout and compressed bill, of which the length is less than twice the depth. 5.—Leucopheus, containing one species, inhabiting southern South America and the Antarctic Islands, with the hind toe joined to the inner by a rugose membrane; the feet coarse, strong, and their webs considerably indented; the bill very short and obtuse (Saunders). 6.—Rissa, the KITTIWAKES, numbering two species, with an arctic summer habitat, extending in winter into sub-tropical latitudes; having the hind toe very rudimentary, or absent, though occasionally not ill developed; the tarsus very short compared with the middle toe and claw; the bill peculiarly curved; the tail slightly forked; the plumage of the immature bird quite unlike that of the adult, or of the young of other species of the subfamily ; they nest invariably on precipitous rocks. 7.—FPagophila, containing a single representative, the Ivory GULL, with the bill short and stout; the feet coarse, rough with serrated membranes, much excised webs and strong curved claws (Saunders); the hind toe joined to the inner toe on the iuside of the foot by a serrated membrane. The Ivory Gull has a circumpolar habitat. The true Gulls (Zaring) have the bill with its upper mandible longer than, and bent down over the tip of, the lower; the tail square, rarely forked or wedge-shaped. 6 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGs. The changes from youth to maturity take a longer time for their accomplish- ment among the Gulls than among the Terns. As among the latter the nesting plumage is succeeded in a very short time by the garb of the year, which is changed by moult in each spring and autumn, till the final and perfect plumage of the species is donned, in, among the larger members of the family, their fourth or fifth year, although some of the smaller Tern-like species may be in fully mature dress after the second spring moult. “Even in those species,” as Mr. Saunders points out, ‘which are destitute of hood at all seasons, there is a seemingly endless variation in the pattern of the primaries, the general tendency being to an increase in the lighter and a diminution in the darker portions of the webs with the advancing age of the individual—a rule which also holds good with many of those species the adults of which bear a hood in the breeding season, whilst on the other hand, there are others which exhibit the apparent anomaly of having a hood in the immature stage and losing it in the adult plumage.” The Stercorariide, the Skuas, DUNGHUNTERS, or Bo’suUNS (as they are more popularly known), differ from the Zade in their general appearance, habits, and structure. The robber instincts, with which they are so strongly endowed, have made them special objects of observation. Their erial bullying pursuit of the Terns and weaker sea-birds (who with terror stricken screams attempt to escape by vigorous flight, but are rarely successful without having to disgorge—which is the object of the Skuas’ attentions—the results of the recent fishing forays from which they are returning), never ceases to be a spectacle followed with the most absorbing interest by everyone who has the opportunity of watching these relentless pirates in their native haunts. The term ‘‘ Dunghunters,” from which they have obtained their general generic appellation Strcorarius, has been applied to them from the erroneous notion that that is the object of their pursuit of Terns and other sea- fowl, instead of its being the fish with which the birds are gorged. There are seven recognized species of Skua included under the two following genera :— 1.—Ifegalestris, or GREAT SKUAS, containing four species, of which one, breeding in Britain, inhabits the subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere in summer, and its temperate latitudes in winter; and three have an antarctic habitat, ranging northwards to the extremities of the great southern continents in winter. 2.—Stercorarius, or LESSER SkuAS, embracing three species (one of which visits and one breeds in the British Isles), whose home is the arctic or subarctic regions, whence in winter they wander southward on all the continents, across the equator far into the southern hemispliere. ORDER GAVIA. 7 Stercorarius may be distinguished from Megalestris by the smaller size and slenderer bodies of the birds; by the depth of the bill being less than the length of the cere; the tarsus markedly less than, instead of subequal to, the middle toe and claw, and in having the central tail feathers three to four inches, instead of half an inch, longer than the rest The young of the Skua emerges from the egg as a downy nestling, which in a few weeks, on becoming fledged, assumes a garb like its parents, but with bars and mottlings of a lighter colour. After becoming adult, Skuas show little seasonal change. In compiling this account of the present state of our knowledge of the British Gavie, we have to acknowledge our great indebtedness to the writings (including correspondence) of Mr. Howard Saunders, the highest European authority on this group, which we have often laid under liberal contribution. HENRY O. FORBES. ANNA FORBES. 8 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Ecas. Family—LARIDA:. Subfamily—STERNINA. BLACK TERN. Fydrochelidon nigra, LINN. HIS beautiful Marsh Tern was at one time a regular British breeding bird. It nested as late as the second decade of the century, in immense colonies in the broads of Norfolk, in the Kent and Lincolnshire marshes, and in various other parts of the South of England. The last year in which the Black Tern is known to have nested in England was 1858; and previous to that, after a long lapse, in 1853, owing to extensive areas of country remaining in a semi-bogged condition, after the great floods which had deluged large tracts in Norfolk in the previous winter. The draining of the fen districts and the spread of cultivation have deprived these fresh-water nesting species of their former nurseries. Now they have, in consequence, deserted our shores during the interesting season of incubation, and visit us only during the spring and autumn, when going to and returning (on their way to warmer latitudes) from the lands where, undisturbed, they have brought forth their broods. Such quiet spots are found in Sweden, Russia, Germany, and other parts of Europe, as also in the southern parts of Canada and Alaska. The breeding range of this Tern in the eastern hemisphere may be roughly demarked by the 25th and the 55th parallels of north latitude, as far east as the goth meridian. In winter the birds from this region migrate southward down both coasts of Africa. In the western hemisphere the range may be stated as between the 35th and 55th parallels across the continent from sea to sea; extending on migration as far, on its eastern side, as the West Indian Islands and the north- eastern shores of South America, and along the Pacific coast as far as Chili. During the migratory season, it is found more frequently on the south-west than on the south-east coasts of England; although in April and May it is not uncommonly to be seen off the coasts of Sussex and Kent, while specimens are recorded from many other parts of the coast. The Black Tern is a rare—generally autumn—visitor to Scotland, and a still rarer to Ireland. In their various plumages both sexes are alike at the same age. In the breeding or summer plumage, from which the females differ only in their slightly paler hue, the male has the head, neck, breast, and underside black; the mantle, YaWANS £9 Na], Movlg “aNP Pp 15), GOP Sa THE BLACK TERN. 9 the upper tail-coverts, the tail and wings slate-grey; the edge of the wing paler; the primary shafts dull white, the webs dark slate-grey, except when new and unworn; the thighs, the under tail and under wing-coverts, white; greater under wing-coverts and axillaries pearl-grey; bill black; feet reddish-brown. “Total length 94 inches; wing 84; middle toe and claw °85; tarsus ‘6 inch. The Black Tern is one of the earliest to make its appearance every year on our coasts and river valleys, for a week or two in April and May, on its return from its warmer winter retreats on its way to its breeding quarters ; and considerable numbers may then be seen together—in incipient summer plumage—hawking over rivers and marshes for flies and other winged insects like Swallows, or dropping suddenly down out of the air, Gannet-like, and deftly picking from the surface of the water minnows, small fishes, worms, or other morsels of food. Finding no undisturbed spot within our bounds, as they once did, to rear their young upon, they make but a short stay with us, and growing every day more and more into their nuptial attire, they hurry on their way to the suitable and safe quarters, which the countries to the north and east of us afford, to undertake their parental duties. These duties over, the parents—generally preceded by the young of the year—pay us, in the autumn, on their way back again to the more genial south, a somewhat longer visit than in the spring. The Black Tern rarely makes its nest on the sea coast; it is a fresh-water-loving bird, and builds in large colonies in reed-covered inland marshes where its nest, composed of vegetable debris piled together to form a fairly large structure, is placed on water-surrounded clumps of fixed vegetation, or occasionally on accumulations of pond material floating on the surface. It rarely nests before the end of May, and in some localities it may not begin for even a month or six weeks later. Never more than three eggs are laid (in size about 14 inches long by 1 inch, or a little more, in diameter), with a ground colour varying from deep olive or pale chocolate to greenish-grey or buff, covered with black or umber, often confluent, blotches, scattered dots, or convoluted streaks, generally forming an irregular belt round the larger end. No part of the egg is free from markings. Dr. Coues has recorded that he saw a colony breeding on the Red River in North America, and found the eggs placed on masses of floating vegetation of the previous year’s reeds, and that they had to be carefully searched for, as they were “laid directly on the moist matting without any nest in any instance, and readily eluded observation from their similarity in colour to the bed of reeds they rested on.” After about three weeks incubation, the chicks emerge covered with soft down of a reddish-brown colour, with the head, wings, and back marked with black; Vou. VI Cc 10 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. the throat sooty and the under surface buff. In a short time the chick becomes fully fledged, and appears in its first complete feathering, which differs from the summer vestment described above, in the forehead, a ring round the neck, the margin of the wings, and the entire under side being white, or greyish-white; a bar through the eyes, the back of the head and nape blackish-brown; the mantle, the scapulars, and the lesser upper wing-coverts blackish-brown (from the grey plumage being margined with this colour); the rest of the upper side and of the wings slate-grey, margined with brown and white. The bill brown, its base pinkish-white; and the tail less forked. Altogether the birds have a general immature look. Before they finally leave our shores on their way to their winter quarters, many of the young birds show a tendency to lose the brownish colour and become greyer. By next spring a great deal of the bars and mottling is lost, and these birds, as may be seen during their stay on their first northward migratory passage, have become very similar to their maturer fellows; the head, neck, and breast being black, but the belly shows more or fewer black feathers amid the white, the latter decreasing with the age of the bird, while the upper side only differs by a dark line along the edge of the wing. This immature plumage remains till the autumn. When their first winter dress—which is very different from that of the summer—is assumed, the forehead, neck, throat ard collar are white, speckled with black; the back of the head, the nape and round the eyes black, with pale margins; the breast and belly white, variegated with black (the amount varying with the stage of moult); the shoulders and margins of the wing greyish-black. In the following spring these Terns appear, after their second true moult, in their first nuptial dress, and being about twenty months old, they have mated or will soon do so, and are about to begin the duties of incubation. In the succeeding autumn, when again on our shores on passage to a more southern latitude for the winter, they are completing the change—which will annually come over them— from their summer to their winter plumage. The food of the Black Tern consists of insects of all kinds which, like most of the Marsh-Terns, it captures on the wing; of small fishes, or other aquatic life which they plunge into the water to secure. They are constantly to be seen, as Dr. Elliott Cones has graphically described in his “Birds of the North West,” “hovering over the marshes in airy troops, fluttering hither and thither like so many Swallows or Night-Hawks, busily foraging for insects. These fall arrivals were chiefly young birds; and of the old ones, none were seen wearing the breeding dress, which, therefore, must be early laid aside. These Terns, like the THE BLACK TERN. II other smaller species, but just the reverse of the larger kinds, are perfectly familiar, or rather heedless, at all times. In the spring, at their breeding resorts, they dash down to an intruder, repeating with angry vehemence their shrill cvzk, crih, ertk; in the fall, when nearly silent, they are equally regardless of approach, often fluttering within a few feet of one’s head and then sailing on again, in the manner of Swallows. The flight is buoyant in the extreme and wayward, desultory, uncertain; perhaps no bird of this country has so great an expanse of wing for its weight, and certainly none fly more lightly. In hovering along on the outlook for insects, they hold the bill pointing straight downward, like others of the family. In the spring I have observed them plunging, like other Terns, into the water for food, probably small fry; but in the fall they seem to feed chiefly on winged insects, which they capture like Night-Hawks, as noted above.” Mr. C. A. Wright, to whom ornithologists in Europe generally are indebted for many notes on Mediterranean birds, especially those of Malta, has some interesting observations on this species in the “Ibis” of 1874. A large number of Black Terns were observed at the end of July, 1870, frequenting the harbour, and on the 6th August ‘“‘I found them,” he says, “in abundance fishing in the New Harbour extension, which was at that time pretty free from shipping. I saw none in the black plumage of summer; all were more or less marked with grey and white. I shot six, the average measurement being from 9% to ro inches in length—the larger specimens being males, as is always the case with the different species of the Tern family; length of wing 83 inches. It was exceedingly interesting to watch their light and airy movements; now dropping suddenly from their airy altitude, splashing the water like a falling stone in pursuit of some small fish or offal that had attracted their attention, now coursing through the air, in imitation, as it were, of the Swallow tribe. In many parts of the New Harbour were placed floating corks to mark certain spots where mines had been laid to blast the rock at the bottom, in order to deepen the anchorage. On most of these corks was to be seen a solitary Tern, quietly watching for some passing fish to seize it for its prey. They showed no fear of approaching boats. I amused myself for some time with one little fellow, by pulling my skiff to windward and allowing it to drift down towards him. He never moved until I had almost touched him with my hand, and then only to mount a few feet in the air over my head, and alight on the same cork the instant that I had passed. This experiment I repeated several times with the same result. Occasionally, while within a few inches of him, he would exchange calls with a passing companion. The note was rather a shrill scream. So close did he allow of my approach that I could watch the expression of his dark bright eye; but there was nothing of 12 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs. alarm in it. May be one reason for its loathness to abandon this particular cork was the presence of a small fish, which he had captured and laid at his feet, and his not wishing to renounce so good a chance of a meal. Taking up the fish to examine and carefully replacing it, I had no sooner done so than my little friend immediately recovered his stand on the cork. So much fearlessness and confidence were enough to touch even a collector’s heart, and nothing could have induced me to repay them by injury.” “The minute insects,” as Mr. Booth records, “that collect in swarms over the broads and swampy pools in the marshes in the east of Norfolk, prove a great attraction to this species on their first arrival in that part of the county. Small parties are to be met with every season, and occasionally I have watched flocks of from fifty to sixty birds engaged in hawking for prey like Swifts; at times they hover over the slades and water dykes after the manner of a Kestrel, or flap across the flooded portions of the hills with much the same actions as the Marsh- Owl, dipping down now and then for food. On the 28th of April, 1883, with a cold wind blowing from east-south-east, they were generally numerous, and a great difference in the shades of the pale grey colouring of the wings was remarked, some being so light that those who had never met with an opportunity of observing the White-winged Black Tern [Aydrochelidon leucoptera| in life, might readily have been mistaken as to the species. Small parties as well as single birds are often seen during the summer months resorting to the Norfolk Broads, and remaining for several days or even weeks in the district; these stragglers seldom exhibit perfect plumage, and are probably birds of the previous year and non-breeders.”’ In his recent, very interesting work, ‘“‘A History of Fowling,” the Rev. H. A. Macpherson states that the Tuscan Fowlers capture large numbers of Terns as they pass along the coasts of Italy on their northern spring migration. “It is chiefly in the month of May,” he says, “that these slender and graceful birds appear in the marshes of Lucca, Pisa, and other districts of Western Italy. The engine employed for the capture of these birds is the ordinary clap-net, which is extended on the margins of the ponds and marshes which these birds visit in flocks. The birds are allured into the nets by the employment of captive individuals, which are fastened to the ground. As many as thirty and even forty birds are sometimes taken at a single pull of the net. The species which supplies the bulk of the victims is the Black Tern (Aydvochelidon nigra). "The rarer White-winged Black Tern (Hydrochelidon leucoptera/, and even the Whiskered Tern (ydrochelidon hybrida) are subject to the same miserable fate. ...... Four Black Terns are sold as a bunch for two soldi. Many, again, are hawked about the streets in a living state, in order that they may be sold for young girls to use as playthings.” HOVWOAIg YANANS BOVANTG YALNIM NYA, MOoVv1g GaDNIM-SLIHM alm THE WHiTE-WINGED BLACK TERN. 13 Family—LARIDAE, Subfamily —STERNINAE. Wuitr-WiInGep BLack TERN. FTydrochelidon leucoptera, SCIINZ. FTCHE White-winged Black Tern in its summer plumage is a very distinct species, and easily recognized from other Terns; but in its immature and winter dress it might easily be mistaken for more than one species. It has occurred in the British Islands, chiefly in England. It has been recorded from seven or eight counties, especially those on the southern and eastern coasts, though it has more than once been taken in Northumberland and Yorkshire. It has not yet been recognized in Scotland. It was in Ireland, however, that it was first observed and identified, the specimen having been killed ‘near the Pigeon- house Fort, Dublin Bay, in October, 1841.” This species breeds all over Southern and Central Europe, as far north as latitude 55°, eastward across Central Asia to (but not further than) China. In winter it migrates southward down throughout Africa, and through Asia across the Malayan Islands to Australasia. It is unknown, except for a couple of accidental occurrences, in the western hemisphere. Both the male and the female in breeding plumage have the head, neck, upper back (which are glossy), under side, flanks, under wing-coverts and axillaries all deep black; the lower back and rump greyish-black; lesser wing-coverts, vent, upper tail-coverts and tail pure white; the greater wing-coverts, the secondaries (which are darker) and the white-shafted primaries (when unworn) pearl grey; the webs of worn primaries black; the inner webs of the four outer quills with a well marked narrow whitish streak down the centre; bill dark red; legs and feet scarlet; toes with much indented webs. Length 9°3 inches; wing 8'2, tarsus ‘75, and middle toe with its claw 1 inch. Like the previous species, the White-winged Black Tern is a marsh Tern, and in its habits, food, and mode of nesting, the two are almost identical. The two species often unite in one colony, and make their nests close together in some inland marsh, although our present species may also be found occupying a locality apart from other Terns. Its nest is placed in the very same kind of situation as the Black Tern’s, and the eggs of the two, three in number, laid at the end of 14 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eacas. May or early in June, are inseparable by size or colour. Mr. Booth saw this species, in the Norfolk Broads, hawking, in company with thousands of Sand Martins, across the surface of the water, and during a whole afternoon kept up their pursuit of insects in precisely the same manner as the Martins. Small fishes and aquatic animals constitute additional items of this bird’s food. Maggots have also been found, on dissection, in its stomach. The plumage-changes that the White-winged Black Tern undergoes, after leaving the nest till it attains maturity, take place in the same manner and at the same seasons as in the last species. The nestling on issuing from the egg, about the beginning or middle of July, is covered on the upper side with a yellowish-brown down, mottled with black, and is of a uniform pale cinnamon-brown beneath. In a few weeks the down is succeeded by the bird’s first plumage, in which the forehead, sides of the neck, rump, under wing-coverts and all the lower surface are white; the crown, nape of the neck, and a spot on the ear-coverts, are brownish-grey, or mottled with black; ‘‘the mantle, the scapulars and the wing-coverts dark slate-grey, with buff margins and brown sub-margins” (Seebohm); after the spring moult, the back, the scapular region, the upper tail-coverts and the tail feathers are pearly or slate-grey, tipped or mottled with brown of lighter or darker shades; primary- webs darker than in the adult; bill brown. After the first spring and during the bird’s first summer, the brown-tipped feathers of the upper surface as just described pass gradually away, chiefly by a change of colour, though a few feathers perhaps moult, leaving only the margin of the wing mottled; the black of the under side shows a brownish tinge, and the tail, especially towards the tips, is grey. The rump, between the grey back and grey tail, is white With its first autumnal moult is assumed the winter garb of this species, which is described as follows by Mr. Howard Saunders :—‘‘in the latter part of July, when the moult begins (in Europe), the bird is curiously parti-coloured, the new feathers of the head, neck, and under parts being white, and those of the back grey; the adult birds have white tails, but in the immature ones it is grey, which serves to distinguish them. Later, the under parts, including the under wing-coverts and axillaries, become white, the crown of the head and the nape being merely mottled with black; but by the following April the black colour has reappeared to a considerable extent, especially on the axillaries’—the next spring moult bringing the Tern into its full nuptial dress. The tail-feathers may remain for several seasons of a greyish, instead of a pure white. The present species is distinguished from the Black Tern at all seasons by its longer and more slender toes and claws, and the deeper indentations of the YaWWNS ee NYA], GeysaXsiIHMA THE WHISKERED TERN. 15 webs. Immature birds have always the white rump, which in W. nigra shows grey continuously from the back to the tail. The full summer plumaged bird on the wing can scarcely be mistaken for any other species; its white wings are a sufficiently conspicuous mark on the upper surface, while seen from beneath the black under wing-coverts distinguish it from the Black Tern, whose under wing- coverts are grey. Family—LARIDA. Subfamily—STERNINA. WHISKERED TERN. fTydrochelidon hybrida, PALL, HIS Tern, which derives its name from the line of white which runs from the base of the upper mandible below the eye to the ear-coverts, is a very rare visitor to our shores. It has been seen or taken only a few times, more often in the south-western than in the other counties of England. A specimen shot in 1836, in Dorsetshire, was the first British record; four or five other occurrences complete the tale of English specimens. It has been taken, though very rarely, both in Scotland and in Ireland. The Whiskered Tern is found in summer across the whole of Europe and of Asia (except Formosa) below 55° N. latitude. In winter it migrates through the Malay Archipelago into Australia as far as 35° S. latitude, and throughout Africa to the Cape of Good Hope. As it has been recorded from the Orange Free State in full breeding dress in December, flying over reed-pans, it may be presumed that some individuals remain resident in South Africa, naturally assuming the breeding dress in the summer of their latitude. As seen on the wing the upper parts are slate-grey, the under side white, and the nape black. The adult male and female are alike, except that the latter is slightly paler. In breeding garb they have the crown of the head, nape of the 16 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs neck, the flanks and the abdomen deep black; the forehead, the sides of the face and neck, the axillaries, the vent, the under tail- and under wing-coverts white; the whole of the back, the rump, the upper tail-coverts, the tail, the wing-coverts and the throat varying from grey to slate-grey; the chest and breast darker. The white-shafted primaries dark slate-grey (except when quite unworn and “ frosted’’) ; the ‘“‘inner webs of the outer pairs of primaries white on the upper and greater part of the inner webs’? (Saunders). Bill dark red; feet scarlet, fading after death to orange. Length ro} inches; wing 9°3; tarsus ‘9. The Whiskered Tern may be looked for, in England, in the early summer, when it is on its northern migration to its breeding stations, and again in the autumn when on its return southward to its winter quarters. Like the other Marsh-Terns, the Whiskered Tern builds in large colonies in inland lakes, ponds and marshes; constructing a nest similar to that described under the two preceding species. This Tern will, however, sometimes not take the trouble to make a nest of its own, but will, as Canon Tristram observed in Algiers, occupy, as a colony of them were doing on the large lakes there, the nests of another bird—the Eared Grebe—just as they had been shortly before left by the young of their builders. Mr. Anderson has given an interesting account of the breeding of this bird in Fyzabad, in July, 1867. .... ‘We had hardly gone beyond the town,” he writes, “when our attention -was attracted by the outcry of a vast assembly of these handsome Terns, that were flying over a gheel or swamp, about a mile in circumference and within a stone’s throw of the main road and of a village which overlooked the piece of water. My friend, who had a pair of glasses in his hand, called out that they were building nests on the swamp, which was one mass of tangled weeds and aquatic creepers, etc. ... We were, however, soon assured that they were all actively engaged in carrying long wire- like weeds (some of them two feet long) from different parts of the gheel, and making huge floating nests on the surface of the water. On the 7th July we again visited the place, taking a small canoe with us..... The circumference of some of the nests I measured ranged between 34 and 4 feet, and they were about 4 inches thick. They were composed entirely of aquatic plants, and so interwoven with the growing creepers that it was quite impossible to remove them without cutting at the foundation of the structure. “The eggs, as may be expected, are subject to the same endless varieties as those of the S. Azvundo (Common Tern) and S. arctica (Arctic Tern), but differ in being smaller, less pointed, and in the general colour being much lighter.” Canon Tristram notes that the Whiskered Tern remained through the winter and spring in small flocks on the Sea of Galilee, till the birds acquired their THE WHISKERED TERN. 7] breeding plumage, when they retired to the marshes of Huleh for nidification— the only species in the country remaining to breed. ‘The Sea of Galilee,” he says, ‘is remarkable for the vast numbers of Grebes, Gulls and Terns which cover its surface in winter and early spring, while after April not a solitary example of a Natator can be detected. Well may birds swarm there, for the shoals of fishes are almost incredible. Masses of fishes, covering an acre or two, may be seen with their back fins above the water, looking, as they move slowly in serried ranks, like the pattering of a heavy shower on the lake. Why all the birds disappear in May can only be accounted for by the absence of any secure breeding places near the lake, the shore being open, destitute of trees, marshes, or other cover, and on the east side forming a long bare range of bleak hills which come almost down to the water’s edge.” Dr. Sharpe gives the ‘prevailing ground colour of the eggs, as greenish- grey, sometimes clay-colour, the markings..... being similar in character to those of the allied Terns, but rather more scattered and distinct, while in some examples the spotting and scribbling is very minute, and the underlying grey spots are more distinct than in eggs of HZ. leucoptera.” The eggs vary in length from 1g to 12 inch, by about 1; inch in diameter, and are slightly larger than those of the two already described Marsh-Terns. The eggs are laid about the middle of May, and the young are hatched towards the end of June. The nestlings are sandy-yellow on the upper surface, mottled, striped, or spotted with black; beneath they are white, with the throat sooty black. In its first plumage, as given by Mr. Saunders, the Whiskered Tern has the forehead white; the crown and nape of the neck blackish-brown; the upper parts pale grey; the mantle mottled with brown and with warm cinnamon-brown edges to the inner secondaries; tail slightly mottled and edged with ash-brown; the under side white; bill and feet reddish-brown. ‘The larger size of the birds at this stage distinguishes them from the young of //. /eucoptera. Before the beginning of the following year the brown markings have become greatly reduced, and after the spring, when a pigment change, or partial moult, takes place, the forehead and crown are seen to be white, the rest of the head and neck, and also the ear-coverts, greyish-black; the back, shoulders and secondaries. slate-grey, strongly blotched with blackish-brown in the middle and tipped with buff; the entire under side white; the tail feathers grey, margined with white; the bill brown, red at the base, and the legs and feet reddish-brown. The first entire moult takes place in the second autumn, when the first winter plumage of the bird is assumed, which is paler on the upper side than in the Vor. VI. D 18 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. adult summer garb; the forehead and under side are white; the crown and the nape of the neck mottled with black; the feathers of the shoulders, the inner secondaries, the tips of the wing-coverts and of the tail brown, with pale margins ; bill and feet reddish-brown. ‘The adults in winter differ from the immature birds here described, by wanting the brown on the shoulders, wings and tail. The Whiskered Tern, in regard to its food and the manner of capturing it, differs little from the other Marsh-Terns. It lives chiefly on insects, dragon-flies, grasshoppers, etc., taken on the wing, and small fishes, frogs and newts pounced upon in shallow water. Family—LARIDA.. Subjamily—STERNINAE. GuLtL-BILLED TERN. Gelochelidon anglica, Monrv. LTHOUGH this Tern has never been but a rare visitant to Great Britain, A and is abundant on the Continent, it was, strange to say, first described as a distinct species from a specimen shot in the county of Sussex, by that keen and accurate naturalist, Colonel Montagu, who described it in 1813, in the Supple- ment to his ‘‘ Ornithological Dictionary,”—the excellent and not unworthy forerunner of that erudite compendium of Ornithology ‘“‘ The Dictionary of Birds,” by Professor Newton. It was at first considered to be a specimen of the Sandwich Tern—a species which had been described for the first time by Latham, in 1785, from a bird shot near Sandwich; but Montagu’s coming into possession of one of the type specimens of that bird, given him by his friend Mr. Vaughan, to whom it had been presented by Dr. Latham, and his placing the birds side by side, occasioned ‘‘the fortunate discovery that a distinct species, apparently more common [than the Sandwich Tern], has been erroneously considered to be that ‘UNP PE ee BSL SS Phe YaWANS SORA ESS THE GULL-BILLED TERN. 19 bird.” The species, “from the shape of the bill” [in which the angle at the union of the two halves of the mandible is prominent], continues Montagu, “is denominated Gull-billed Tern, a prominent character of distinction between the two; and as it has originated in England we have added the more scientific name of Sterna anglica.” As a matter of accuracy, however, this Tern was first discovered by the naturalist Hasselqvist, on the banks of the Nile during his travels in Egypt. “One specimen of this species,’ observes Montagu, in his original account of it, “we shot in Sussex, and have known others to have been killed about Rye.” Since then nearly a score of individuals have been shot in England, chiefly in spring and autumn—the majority of them in Norfolk. No specimens have as yet been recorded from Scotland or from Ireland. Of these visitors to our shores, one dropped a fully formed egg when shot, another had well developed eggs in its ovary on dissection, and a third was in full breeding plumage, so that it is not improbable that it may yet be found breeding in this country. This species, which is much more a Sea- than a River- or Marsh-Tern, breeds in most parts of the temperate regions of both hemispheres. In the eastern hemisphere it is found in summer all over Europe below 55° N. latitude; but breeding only in Denmark and on both coasts of the Mediterranean (of Italy excepted) and the Black Seas. Elsewhere in Europe the Gull-billed Tern is a visitor just as it is in England. The individuals so summering, migrate to Northern Africa in winter. It breeds over temperate Asia and the south of China, whence in winter it spreads through India, Ceylon and Burmah to the Indian Archipelago and to Australia, where it has also been observed breeding. In the western hemisphere it occurs down on the eastern coasts as far as the south of the Argentine Republic; but only on the coast of Guatemala on the western side of the hemisphere. The Gull-billed Tern differs somewhat in its places of resort from the Marsh- Terns, preferring the estuaries of rivers, sandy shores of the coasts, and salt lagoons, to inland fresh-water swamps and lakes—although it does frequent them also. The receptacle for its eggs is hardly a nest, but generally merely a hollow scratched in the sand or dry mud, with occasionally a few shreds of vegetable material laid in. Like other Terns, this species also builds in large colonies. “Two is the usual number of eggs,” says the late Mr. Seebohm, from observations made by himself in a lagoon in Asia Minor, “and I have frequently found three but never four. The eggs of this bird are by no means so handsome as those of Sterna cantiaca, nor are they on the average quite as large. A usual sized egg 20 BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. measures 2 inches by 18 inch. A smaller and rounder egg measures 136 inch by 133 inch, whilst an abnormally large . . . one reaches the dimensions of 238 inches by 14 inch.” The male and female are alike, except that the latter is somewhat smaller than the former, and has a slightly more slender bill. In the breeding season the forehead, from the nostrils, over the top of the head to the level of the eye, down to the nape of the neck, including the crest, jet black; all the upper surface, including the tail (whose outer feathers are whiter) pearl grey; primaries (of which the four outer are white shafted), when fresh moulted, pearl grey, but later in the season the tips and inner webs darker; ‘‘a distinct white wedge on the upper part of the inner web of the outer primary, but smaller and less defined on the succeeding flight feathers” (Saunders); lower half of the lores, sides of the face, and the entire under surface of the body and wings, white; bill black, sometimes red at the base of the lower mandible; iris brown; legs and feet reddish-black, the webs of the toes moderately indented. Length 14::-153 inches; wing 12-13, or more than twice the length of the tail, which is 53-6, a character which distinguishes this Tern from other species; as also the tarsus in being 13 inch, or larger than the middle toe and claw, which together measure 1} inch. The eggs are intermediate in colouration between those of the Gulls and Marsh-Terns, and provide another character, in addition to the form of the bill and the habitat of the bird, indicating the intermediate position the Gull-billed Tern holds between the Zavine and the Sternine. According to Mr. Seebohm, whose enormous collection of eggs gave him a better opportunity than most ornithologists for studying their various varieties, says that the ground colour is a yellow ochre, or stone colour, of a lighter or darker shade, and occasionally a pale greenish-brown, with small greenish, or reddish-brown, roundish spots or irregular blotches, those underlying being paler and greyer (simply because they are, as in all eggs, not on the surface, but underneath a thin layer of shell); as a rule the markings are evenly distributed, or they may be more agglomerated round the larger end. The eggs are laid about the beginning of June, and the young are, mostly all hatched before the end of July. The downy chicks are buffy or stone-white, mottled and striped with brown, or dark grey, on the top and sides of the head, and along the back: the under side is uniform greyish-white. The fully fledged bird differs from the summer dress in having all the region which is then black distinctly buff-tinted white, streaked with greyish-black on the crown and mottled on the nape; the eye set in a darker lozenge; the upper side, especially between the wings, distinctly fawn colour, deepening (in a week or THE GULL-BILLED TERN. Ax two) into brownish-buff, the feathers centred with brown; the wing quills darker than in the adult in summer garb; bill, legs and feet reddish-brown. By the time the bird is two months old, the brown and the buff have con- siderably diminished, and during the first spring and summer pigment changes occur, which result in its garb differing from the above only in the diminution of the brown and buff, and in the darkening of the streaks on the head, a plumage almost like that of the adult in winter, in which the brown becomes black; the back is slightly paler than in summer; the quills (which are fresh and “ frosted” in November and December) are hoary grey, and the outer tail feathers whiter than in summer. The absence of a dark bar across the lesser upper wing-coverts, distinguishes the young of this species from those of the Arctic or the Sandwich Terns. The adult Gull-billed Tern may at once be recognized from the Sandwich Tern, which it so nearly resembles, more indeed than any of the other British species, by the great length of its hind toe. Mr. W. H. Simpson, who collected the eggs of this species in the lagoon of Mesolonghi, observes that the greater number of the nests were placed ‘‘in the raised outer edge [of the islets], which, in case of flood, would remain longest high and dry. The eggs were deposited upon the sand or soil, in a depression slightly lined with a few bits of dead grass, and are not easily detected, as their colours blend with surrounding objects. The birds appear to commence incubation simultaneously, or nearly so, as most of the nests contained eggs pretty fresh. They did not evince the anxiety which many Terns do about their eggs, but simply contented themselves with flying in a body at a great height over the islands. I strongly suspect that in these hot countries the Terns do not care to sit upon their eggs throughout the day, and this may be the reason why one often sees flocks of S. anglica feeding miles away from head quarters.” Mr. Dresser, who observed this bird in Texas, gives the following very excellent account of it:—‘‘I met with it,” he says, “breeding in considerable numbers on Galveston Island ... In habits it reminded me a good deal of the Sandwich Tern, but was rather more Gull-like, and its call-note especially bore resemblance to that of a Gull. I found it breeding in colonies; and when I was engaged in examining the nests, the parent birds flew anxiously round, uttering Joud cries. As a rule the nests were mere holes scratched in the sand; but in some instances an attempt had been made to form a bed of straws and drift-stuff for the reception of the eggs, which were generally three in number, though in one or two instances I found as many as four in one nest, whereas in Europe two or three are the complement. I did not notice these birds fishing; they 22 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs seemed to be feeding chiefly on insects, of which there were quantities in the neighbourhood of the breeding colonies. On the wing they were exceedingly swift and elegant; and their flight seems more powerful than that of most of the smaller species of Terns. According to Von Henglin this Tern feeds chiefly on Orthoptera of all sorts and sizes, Libellulide, Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, occasionaily also ALutillide, which it catches with ease on the wing. When there is a prairie- fire it is found there, with many other species of birds, darting into the dense smoke in pursuit of locusts; and it also catches young birds and small mammals, and is often seen fishing amongst the surf. Mr. O. Salvin, who met with it in Algeria, says that it feeds over the grass-fields and open land, hovering and descending, as it does on an English coast over a shallow, its food being grass- hoppers and beetles instead of sand-eels.” Herr Gatke observes in the “‘ Birds of Heligoland,” that “the great difference in the mode of life of this species from that of its near congeners could not fail to attract the notice of the observant Heligolander, and he has christened the bird accordingly [Lunn-kerr, or Land Tern]. Any one who, day after day, has watched the Terns darting down into the sea from great heights, so that the foam spurts high into the air, must feel particularly impressed to see a bird so similar in appearance roving’ about over the fields, suddenly dropping among the long stalks of the potatoes, and disap- pearing from sight. Such, however, is the only way in which the bird seeks its food on this island; for it has never been seen fishing on the sea like the other members of the genus.” The note of this Tern in the breeding season has, by most of those ornith- ologists who have had an opportunity of listening to it, been described as resembling the “laugh” of the Gull, variously modulated, and, sounding doubtless differently to different ears, it has been recorded by different phonetics. The recording of the various notes of birds offers a large and interesting field to the ornithologist armed with a phonograph. Mr. Darwin, who procured a specimen at Bahia Blanca, in Northern Patagonia, says, ‘‘I may here observe that many navigators have supposed that Terns, when met with out at sea, are a true indication of land. But these birds seem not unfrequently to be lost in the open ocean; thus one (Megalopterus stolidus) flew on board the Beagle, in the Pacific, when several hundred miles from the Galapagos Archipelago. No doubt, the remarks made by navigators, with respect to the proximity of land where Terns are seen, refers to birds in a flock, fishing, or otherwise shewing that they are familiar with that part of the sea. I, therefore, more particularly mention that off the mouth of the Rio Negro, on the Patagonian shore, I saw a flock [probably of this species] .... fishing seventy miles from YaWAWNS ss NYA] Nvidsv9d WO SS CNT SE THE CASPIAN TERN. 23 land; and off the coast of Brazil a flock of another species, hundred and twenty miles from the nearest part of the coast. The latter birds were in numbers, and were busily engaged in dashing at their prey.” One of the present writers may perhaps be allowed to quote his own experience on this point, from “A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago,” p. 12. “On the afternoon of the sixteenth day of weary beating from Anjer [in West Java], a pure white Tern suddenly appeared, and, circling about the vessel, produced quite a flutter of excitement. It was the lovely Gygis candida, one of the Keeling Island birds, which our native boatswain declared never went far from home, and that, therefore, we must be near our destination. Several of the sailors ran aloft, and in a few minutes descried to the northward the crowns of the higher cocoanut palms on the southern islands. We straightway changed our course, for our skipper had evidently miscalculated our noon position, and, but for this timely pilot, would have sailed past in the night. At sundown the islands appeared from the deck as a dark uneven line, rising little above the horizon; at ten o’clock we sailed into the anchorage.” Family—LARIDAE2. Subfamily—STERNINA. CasPIAN TERN. Fydroprogne caspia, PALL. HIS bird was first discovered about hundred and twenty-eight years ago, on the margin of the Caspian Sea, and derives its name, therefore, from the locality in which it was first captured. More than a dozen specimens have been killed in England, the majority of them on the south and south-east coast; it has been recorded also from Yorkshire and from as far north as the Farne Islands. It has not been detected in Ireland or Scotland. 24 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eaas. Wherever this species happens to stray, it can scarcely elude the notice of any one accustomed to observe our more Common Terns, on account of its large size (it is the largest species frequenting Britain), its short wings and its fine scarlet bill. That it has not more frequently visited this country is somewhat remarkable, for its distribution over the globe is very wide. Its northern-most breeding place in the Eastern Hemisphere is in the islands of Sylt, in the Baltic Sea, in about 60° N. latitude. It is met with in summer to the southward of this parallel through- out Europe as far as the Mediterranean, on both sides of which its nests are to be found, whence it extends down the coasts of Africa. In Asia it breeds south of the above named parallel (but is absent from Japan), and is found along the shores of the Gulf of Persia, on. the Caspian Sea, and on the salt lakes of Turkestan. Thence in winter it frequents rivers, jheels and tanks in India, but without breeding, though strangely enough, it has been found nesting in Ceylon, and has found its way to Australia and New Zealand, where it breeds also. In the Western Continent it has been taken from near the arctic circle down its eastern coasts as far south as Florida, yet on the western side it does not extend beyond California. The male differs from the female only in being slightly smaller and in having the bill of a paler red. Both have, therefore, in the breeding season, the head, from a point in line with the nostrils, extending below the eyes and over the crown to the nape of the neck, glossy greenish-black; the mantle, the rump, the upper tail-coverts, the wing-coverts, the tail (whose feathers are white-shafted and have the outermost quills pointed and but slightly longer than the rest), and the primaries (whose shafts are also white), when freshly moulted, pearl-grey; the latter are later in the season, when worn and rubbed, darker grey; the margins of their inner webs and the entire web of the first quill slate-blue; face beneath the black hood and the entire under surface pure white; the bill scarlet, the legs and feet black. Total length 20 inches (more or less); wing 16}; tail 6; tars s 17, inch, and the middle toe with its claw 14. The Caspian Tern prefers to breed in colonies not far from the sea; but, nevertheless, often frequents lakes and lagoons a long distance from the coast. The nest is a mere indentation in the ground, in which three eggs, sometimes fewer but never more, are laid about the beginning of June or the end of May. The eggs, which are larger than those of the Gull-billed Tern, are of a brownish-buff or stone-grey (often very pale) ground-colour, marked with small brown or blackish segregated spots, and others abundant and under- lying of a pale olive-brown colour. They vary in size from a little over or under 24 inches in length, by a little more or less than 12 inch in diameter. THE CASPIAN TERN. 25 The nestlings appear about the end of June or beginning of July, clad in pale buffy- or greyish-white down, mottled with grey or brown; their under surface dull white; and the bill, legs and feet yellow. The plumage of the young birds differs from that of the summer described above, in having the bill orange red, horn coloured at the tip; the forehead, the crown, the nape and the lores white, streaked with black; the ear-coverts and orbital patch black; the mantle mottled and barred with brownish-black; the wing-coverts and secondaries much marked with brownish-grey; the tail mottled and barred with brownish-black; the primaries ash-grey to brown at the tips; back pearl-grey; rump and upper tail-coverts paler; the entire under surface pure white. During the first autumn, and the first spring and summer of the bird’s life, a few feathers are probably moulted; but the change that takes place in the colour of the plumage is due chiefly to a pigment change in the feathers. During this interval the principal change that occurs is the loss of the mottled and barred markings of the mantle and tail. Mr. Saunders gives the following description of the young at this season and before its first real moult, which is in the second autumn of its life. Beak dull red, horn coloured at the point; the lores, the forehead, the nape and the top of the head streaked with white and black, the upper surface of the body varied with patches of ashy-brown and darker transverse bands; the feathers of the tail have dark ends; primary quill-feathers also dark; entire under surface pure white. The winter plumage, which results from the autumn moult, is similar to that of the breeding season, but the feathers of the crown of the head and sides of the face are white, broadly centred with black. “On the third June,” writes Mr. H. Durnford, in the “Ibis” for 1874, “we walked from List, the most northern village on Sylt, to the nesting place of this species on the north-west coast of the island, half-way between the two lighthouses. There were two small colonies, some hundred and fifty yards apart, consisting of about ten and the other of about fifteen pairs of birds. They lay their eggs in the bare sand between the beach and the dunes, in a slight hollow about the size of an Oyster-Catcher’s nest, occasionally lining it with a few pieces of shell, no nest (and we saw about a dozen) containing more than two eggs, which is not to be wondered at, as they are robbed by boys from List on every possible occasion. There were about ten eggs on the ground, two nests with two each, others con- taining a single egg apiece, and a few empty..... The Caspian Tern is an exceedingly handsome bird, its bright red bill, when circling over one’s head, contrasting well with the dark coloured legs. Whilst approaching the nesting Vou, VI E 26 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS grounds we were greeted with harsh and noisy screams. Their note is not unlike that of Sterna fluviatilis, but louder and more powerful. When they have young they are said to be extremely bold; and the farmer told us that when, on one occasion, he was visiting them with some friends, a bird took from a lady’s hand a pocket handkerchief which she was waving over her head.” On the 2oth of March, 1871, Dr. Mébuis visited the same breeding place, called Ellenbogen, on Sylt, and saw only seventeen nests, while in 1819 Naumann was able to find three hundred, and Dr. Boié, at a later period, two hundred, showing a continual diminution of the colony. Gould says that he could always discover the eggs of this Tern, by the clamorous, cackling, screeching note which the bird constantly uttered while flying near the place where the nest was. He states also that he never saw it breeding in colonies, and unless they were nesting on a large island, he rarely met with more than a pair on an island. Mr. Dresser has given so interesting an account of the bird from his own experience, that we make no apology for the following extract from his great work “The Birds of Europe.” ‘This, the largest and most powerful of our European Terns, is almost essentially a frequenter of the sea, seldom occurring inland or on smaller sheets of water; and it is said to wander less than its allies, being seldom found far from its nest during the breeding season. Where I have met with it on the coasts of Sweden and Finland, it is rather scarce than other- wise, and is found during the breeding season in single pairs, appearing unsociable in its habits; but in places where it is common, it collects together in large numbers and breeds in colonies. When sitting, the large bill gives it a somewhat ungainly appearance; but on the wing it is graceful and active in its movements, more so than the Gulls, though slower and not so buoyant as most of the other species of Terns. It is powerful and bold, and is strong enough to protect its eggs and young from any of the Gulls; but at the same time it is said to take toll, like these, amongst its weaker feathered brethren, and to now and again catch and devour a young bird, or steal an egg or two. It swims more than the other Terns, but is not a very good swimmer. It feeds chiefly on fish, which it catches as they are swimming close to the surface of the water, pouncing down on them after hovering fora moment in the air; but it is said never to immerse itself below the surface when plunging down after its prey; but merely dips its head in the water. When caught the fish is swallowed whole, head first; and digestion is very rapid, so that before it has been long in the stomach it is reduced, all except the bones, to a sort of pulp.” 5 NYA] HOIMAGNYS THE SANDWICH TERN. 27 Lamily—LA RIDA. Subfamily—S TERNINZAE. SANDWICH TERN. Sterna cantiaca, GMEL. HIS Tern derives its names of ‘‘ Sandwich” and “ Kentish” Tern from having been discovered (in 1784) in the neighbourhood of the town of Sandwich, in Kent—a locality near which it is now almost quite unknown. It regularly breeds in England, though far less abundantly than formerly; for owing to persecution it is found now only in the few localities where it has been permitted to nest undisturbed. It breeds still also on Walney Island, off the Lancashire coast, and at the mouth of the River Esk; and on the Farne Islands on the east coast. Through the well directed efforts of a few naturalists, who have formed an association for the pro- tection of the sea birds which annually resort to the latter locality to breed, there were in June, 1892, as many as 2,400 nests of this Tern there; while in 1867 there were only some 200 pairs nesting. We understand that Walney Island has now also become a “ protected area,’’ as are the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey, in which birds can not be shot at any season of the year. No doubt this, along with other rare species which occasionally resort there to build, will now have a chance of increasing on the western as well as on the eastern side of England. In Scotland the Sandwich Tern breeds at several places on the east coast and on some of the inland lochs. In Ireland there is, we believe, only one small islet in a lake between Killala and Ballina, in County Mayo, where the bird finds a safe nursery. We dare to name this locality because the proprietor, Sir Charles Gore, to whom every ornithologist feels grateful for his action, strictly preserves from molestation these birds, which are prone, on very little interference, to desert a breeding place. Beyond the British Isles the Sandwich Tern has been found along the whole of the western shores of Europe, south of the latitude of Denmark. In summer it frequents the coasts of the Black Sea, and breeds on the Caspian, thence it migrates to Asia to winter along the shores of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the coasts of Sind. Birds frequenting Western Europe winter in Africa, 23 BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. appearing down all the west coast to the Cape, and round on the eastern side as far as Natal. On the American coast it occurs off southern Massachusetts, but breeds only south of Florida, then wintering still further south, through the Gulf of Mexico (ranging across to Guatemala on the western side) to Brazil. The Sandwich Tern arrives on our shores early in the season from its winter retreat (in Northern Africa probably) generally between the middle of April and the middle of May, occasionally a few individuals have been seen as early as mid-March. According to Mr. Seebohm it arrives at the Farne Islands about the middle of April, “‘to reconnoitre its breeding grounds; every morning the birds pay an early visit to the islands, before they disappear to fish; as the time when they begin to lay approaches, they lengthen their stay, until about a month after their arrival they have finally decided on a site for the colony, when they take up their permanent abode on the islands for the season.” ‘They arrive in almost their full breeding attire. There being no distinction between the plumage of the two sexes, both have the feathers of the crown pointed and elongated into a crest; the tail —its outer feathers about 13 inch longer than the rest—shorter than the wings and the hind toe very small. The forehead, from the nostrils to the level of the lower edge of the eye, over the top of the head to the nape of the neck black; general colour of the upper side dark pearl-grey; but the sides of the face below the eyes, the sides of the neck, the tips of the scapulars, and the bend of the wing, the upper tail-coverts and the tail, with the under side (including the under wing-coverts and the axillaries) pure white; the under parts during life present a slightly roseate hue, vanishing at death; the primaries (which are assumed freshly in March) darker, the margins of their inner webs with conspicuous white borders (which become worn off by May); the four outer quills “with white shafts, accompanied by a blackish band along its inner aspect to the end of the feathers, the rest of the inner webs white; immer primaries and secondaries white, with more or less grey on the outer webs” (Sharpe); bill black, tipped with yellow; legs and feet black. Total length 16 inches; wing 12; tail 52; the leg (which is short) is Iv; inch, and the middle toe with its claw 1,% inch. The Sandwich Terns, which are somewhat smaller and feebler than the Caspian Terns, begin to nest about the end of May; and being true Sea-Terns their breeding places are usually marine, though they have been known to breed in inland lochs even far from the sea. It can scarcely be said that they make a nest, for their eggs are deposited on the bare sand in slight hollows on some flat sandy or stony terrace, with or without vegetation ; sometimes the nest may be made on a drift heap or in a clump of Campion. ‘Their “nests,” as Mr. Seebohm has observed, are “‘in diameter and depth of the dimensions of a cheese plate, and THE SANDWICH TERN. 29 they and their contents were so difficult to distinguish from the sand and fine gravel, that my first discovery of the colony was to find that I had ‘put my foot in ah?” These terneries are often very large and the nests so close together that it is very difficult to traverse them without stepping on the eggs. Close by may often be found the nests of other species of Tern, of Gulls and of other sorts of water-fowl. The eggs vary in number from two to three: frequently only two, but never more than three, are laid. They differ considerably in size, and are, as a rule, conspicuously but very varyingly marked; the ground colour being brownish-buff, cream, or oil-green, blotched or spotted with dark brown and black, with other spots, blotches and scrawls of a lighter shade, seen distinctly underlying the surface of the shell. Their size is from 2 inches to 2} in length, and about 14 inch in diameter. Only one brood is raised in the year. The length of incubation is about three weeks, at the end of which—from the middle to the end of June—the little downy chicks, pure white below, and buffy-grey mottled with greyish-black on the back and upper side, break their prison walls. The chicks are all quite alike despite the great variability of the eggs. Soon after the date of the commencement of incubation, the parent birds begin to lose the black head, and at their autumn moult they assume their winter garb, which differs from that of the summer, in having the feathers in the upper part of the head white with only a median black patch; those of the back of the head bluish black with white margins; a black spot in front of the eye, and the nape streaked with black; the roseate hue on the underside is slightly paler than in summer. The young birds in their first plumage are constantly to be seen in company with their parents throughout the remainder of the summer till about the end of September or beginning of October, when all together they take their migratory flight southwards. In the immature birds the bill is shorter than the head, is of a horn colour and yellowish at the tip; the feathers of the nape are oblong and rounded, their garb differs from the winter attire of their parents in having the forehead with small brownish-black touches; the upper part of the head and nape dull white, mottled with brownish-black and pale-reddish; the fore part of the back and shoulders and the rest of the upper parts as in the adult, but every- where marked with reddish-brown barred with blackish-brown; an ashy grey band along the lesser wing coverts; the quills dark grey edged and tipped with white; tail feathers white and tipped with dusky-white. The occipital crest appears only after the first moult, that is in the second autumn of their age. Vout. VI. F 30 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. In September the young birds undergo a moult after which the “ upper parts of the head and nape are variegated with black and white. The forepart and sides of the neck with all the lower parts pure white; as are the head, neck and rump, but most of the feathers there have a crescent at the tip. The forepart of the back, the scapulars, the smaller wing-coverts, are light greyish-blue, with similar black bars; the secondary coverts unspotted and toward the end white; the secondaries white with an oblong dark grey mark toward the end, the pri- maries and their coverts of a darker grey on the outer and a great part of the inner webs. The tail feathers pale grey, shaded with darker toward the end, where they are margined with white” (Macgillivray). In their habits the Sandwich Terns differ very little from the species we have already described. Their food consists of fish-fry; sometimes of shell-fish and small fishes, especially of the sand eels (Ammodytes tobianus) which live buried in the sand but rise to the surface often quite suddenly in great shoals, and when attacked dive as suddenly to the bottom, again seeking safety in the sand. The Sandwich Tern is almost constantly on the wing, on the outlook for food and every little while uttering a harsh and grating cry audible a long way off. The Sandwich Tern, when its eye catches sight of its prey, dashes down perpendicularly into the water, though rarely immersing its whole body, whence it emerges in a few moments successful. If the object of its attack should move away from the surface the Tern will with a quick and easy evolution recover itself, and instead of striking the water, will sail over the spot and ascend again into the air. When shot on the wing it falls gyrating to the ground, reminding one much of the “tumbling” performed by many species of Aiipidura, due, as Sir William Jardine long ago pointed out, to the small, light bodies being greatly supported by the long tail and expansive wings. Sandwich Terns make their appearance in MHeligoland, according to the observations of the patriarchal ornithologist of the island, Herr Gatke, “during the second half of April and until the middle of May, when they may be seen chasing one another about, in pairs, in the bright sunshine, at heights of from five hundred to a thousand feet, amid frequent utterance of their loud shrill cries, often, indeed, their calls alone are audible from heights to which the eye vainly endeavours to penetrate. These are undoubtedly breeding pairs from the coasts of Sleswich-Holstein and East Frisia, which rejoicing in their recent union, thus gaily disport themselves, but a few minutes being required to take them back to their home. ‘“Somewhat later the same birds are met with in much larger numbers. They then come in swarms very close to the Sand-island, dipping incessantly down ¢ 8 NYA, aALVaSOY wesF ee PARR bean HONDO. ry “eet eS THE ROSEATE TERN. 31 to the surface of the water in pursuit of sand-eels . . . The birds at first consume these themselves, but later on carry them to their young. The young appear on the scene very soon after their education is finished, arrayed in the mottled plumage of their early youth, and old and young may then be seen fishing near the dune until the end of the summer.” Family—LA RIDA. Subfamily—STERNINA. RosEATE TERN. Sterna dougalli, Monv. HIS very beautiful Tern was discovered on the 24th July, 1812, by Dr. McDougali, of Glasgow, in the Cumbrays, two flat rocky islands in Milford Bay, in the Firth of Clyde, and was described in the following year by Colonel Montagu, in the Supplement to his ‘‘ Ornithological Dictionary,” already referred to on a former page. ‘On these Islands the Common Tern swarmed, and,” says Montagu, “the first of the new species was shot, by accident, by one of the Doctor’s companions, and happening to fall close to him on the rocks he was attracted by the beautiful appearance of its breast”’; and, as Dr. McDougall pointed out, it was, in the air also, easily discerned ‘‘ by the comparative shortness of wing, whiteness of plumage, and by the elegance and comparative slowness of motion; sweeping along or resting in the air almost immoveable, like some species of the Hawk; and from the size being considerably less than that” of the Common Tern. Of the specimens which formed the types of this species, one is in the British Museum, and two are in the magnificent collection, bequeathed in 1851 to the city of Liverpool by Lord Derby, and now in the Free Public Museums. One of the latter passed into the XIIIth Earl’s celebrated Museum, by presentation to him by Colonel Montagu, and two were purchased by him at Dr. McDougall’s sale, as the following MS. note, preserved in Liverpool, in Lord Derby’s hand, indicates :— 32 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EcGs. “In my specimens, which were those preserved by Dr. McDougall aud procured for me at his sale, the upper [outer] feather of the tail exceeds the next to it by about three inches, and the wings by three and a half in the male, in the female by about half an inch less. A third specimen was given me by Colonel Montagu.” After Colonel Montagu’s discovery it was found that the Roseate Tern, which had been mistaken in several of its resorts for the Common Tern, was breeding on other places on the Scotch coasts*; in the Irish Channel, near Belfast; on Foulney and Walney Islands, on the Lancashire sea board; gn the Scilly Isles, and on the Farne Islands lying off the Northumberland coast. Most of these stations are now deserted; but as late as 1864, Mr. J. E. Harting found the species on Walney, and in 1865, Mr. Howard Saunders observed a single pair there. In the “ Zoologist,” however, of 1897 (p. 165), the interesting announcement was made that the Roseate Tern was again a breeder in our islands. ‘ Your readers,” writes Mr. Potter, ‘‘ will be aware that eminent and leading ornithologists have for some years been of opinion that the Roseate Tern only visited our coasts as a casual summer migrant, and this has been so stated in all recent works on British Birds .... However, for the past few years I have known of a colony of these birds nesting annually in Britain; but, of course, for obvious reasons I must refrain from naming the precise locality. In 1895 I sent Mr. J. T. Proud, of Bishop Auckland, specimens of their eggs, and informed that gentleman of the whereabouts of the locality, and last year he visited the place, saw the birds and obtained the eggs himself .... It is satisfactory to know that these rare birds have selected a portion of our islands for rearing their young where they are not likely to be much disturbed by man; in fact, as can be supposed, it is far from the path of the ordinary tourist or collector, and it is to be hoped that those gentlemen, who are already aware of the habitat in question, will keep it secret for the sake of the birds and British ornithology.”” The precise locality has not been published beyond that it is in Wales. It is to be hoped this species may yet again breed in Norfolk and in the Irish and Lancashire localities, where it was formerly in the habit of nesting. As to the range of this interesting bird outside the British Isles, Mr. Howard Saunders, our greatest authority on the Gulls and Terns, thus sums up our knowledge of its distribution in the “ Ibis” for 1896:—‘“‘It is a matter of common knowledge,” he writes, “that the Roseate Tern...... annually visits certain * The Culbin Sands, on the Moray Firth, have long been known to receive occasional visits from the Roseate Tern. Mr. O. A. J. Lee saw seven pairs in that locality in May 1887, and obtained fresh eggs of this species (f Harvie-Brown and Buckley, ‘A Fauna of the Moray Firth,” Vol. IJ., p. 308).—H.A.M. THE ROSEATE TERN. 33 portions of the coasts of the United Kingdom for the purposes of reproduction. It is an oceanic Tern, nowhere numerically abundant, and remains with us for a very short time, being the last of the Terns to arrive and the very first to leave, and the young are, consequently, very rare in collections. It is, moreover, unusually intolerant of interference, and if the Common Tern /S. flwviatilis) becomes too numerous in its favourite haunts, it yields, almost without a struggle, and goes elsewhere. This has been proved, by Dr. Bureau, on the north-west coast of France. In 1890, I was surprised to find, at Geneva and Lausanne, examples which had been obtained on Lake Léman, in May; and I assumed that these were occasional migrants deflected from a supposed line of migration up the Rhone Valley from the Western Mediterranean, where, as already stated, the species was known to occur irregularly. No one has yet obtained the Roseate Tern on the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, the north-west shores of Africa, or on the Canary Islands; but it occurs in Madeira, as well as in the Azores. Passing westward, we find it in the Bermudas; the West Indian Islands, generally from the vicinity of Venezuela upwards; and along the east side of America up to Massachusetts; not on the Pacific side, even where the continent is narrowest. Returning to the eastern hemisphere, the Roseate Tern has been taken at the Cape of Good Hope and in South-eastern Africa; breeds on the Mascarene Islands, Ceylon and the Andamans; can be traced by Tenasserim, Malaysia, and the Moluccas to Australia, and even to New Caledonia—its most eastern breeding place; while it ranges along the China Seas to the Loo-choo Islands, wandering to Hitachi, Japan. ‘‘Now it will be seen,” continues Mr. Saunders, “that there are two very important gaps in its distribution; no authentic specimens being known from West African waters, between Madeira and the Cape of Good Hope, on the one side, or between the Mediterranean and the Indian Seas on the other. But when —as Mr. Whittaker has shown—a colony exists on the coast of Tunisia, it seems not improbable that the line of continuity should be sought eastward, along the coast of Africa, and southward, down the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. It is quite conceivable that the Roseate Tern may not érecd on the Islands of the Red Sea, because there, as well as at the Laccadive Islands and along the Malabar coast, we find—thrust in like a wedge—S. albigena, an allied species, which may prove inimical to S. dougalli, just as S. fluviatilis is, under certain conditions, further north. But it strikes me now that if a look-out is kept for the Roseate Tern along the Red Sea, in April and again in September, not omitting the Persian Gulf—for the bird may perhaps try the Euphrates Valley route—we ought before long to learn more about the somewhat mysterious distribution of this species. 34 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGs. Perhaps our northern birds may go no further south than the basin of the Mediterranean in winter.” The Roseate is the last of the Terns to arrive in the British Isles, and not till about the beginning of June need it be looked for. The following is a description of the adults—of which both sexes are alike— in breeding plumage:—crown and hind neck deep glossy black, with bluish reflections; back and upper surface of the wings delicate bluish-grey; primaries darker, the inner margins of their webs “with conspicuous white borders, which extend to the extreme tips and even slightly ascend the outer webs; the outer webs and the lines parallel to the inside of the white shafts black to grey, according to the amount of frosting” (Saunders) ; the rump and upper tail-coverts paler; the long outer tail feathers quite white; the rest of the plumage white; but the under side and fore neck of a roseate hue, which fades greatly after death; the long and slender bill brownish-black, orange at its base; the legs and feet orange- red. Total length 154 inches; wings 9}; tail 74; tarsus ,ths, and middle toe with its claw 1 inch. The wings are long, narrow and pointed; the tail long, very deeply forked, the lateral feathers attenuated and extending about three inches beyond the tips of the closed wings. The duties of incubation commence as soon as possible after the arrival of the Terns at their breeding place. Early in June the Roseate Tern lays, according to different observers, one, two, three or four eggs. It is possible that these vary in number under varying conditions, and it may be that occasionally two birds lay in one nest. The more usual number of eggs, however, is three. They are similar to those of the Common Tern, but are slightly smaller and more elongated. They are pale brown, or yellowish- or purplish-buff, with dark brown spots, which may be more or less thickly distributed, and may vary in shape and size. In length, according to Dr. Sharpe, they average from 1°5-1°8 inches in length by 1’o5-1'2 in diameter. The Roseate Tern nests, as does the Common Tern, in company with its own species, never very far from the sea. The nest is a mere depression in the ground, sometimes with, and often without any lining. During incubation the male feeds the female, who keeps to her maternal duties. Mr. Blanc, a collector in Tunis, has observed that this species, unlike most of the Tern family, ‘‘ instead of leaving its nest exposed, endeavours to hide it as carefully as possible under any scrub-plants or long grass it may find available, sometimes making a tunnel-like passage or approach to the nest under the herbage. The nest itself is merely a depression in the ground, sometimes bare, at others thinly lined with grass bents, in which but one egg is deposited.” THE ROSEATE TERN 35 The young are hatched towards the end of June, or early in July; the nestlings being buff on the upper surface, spotted with white and grey, and pure white on the under side. They resemble more the nestlings of the Sandwich Tern than those of either the Arctic or the Common Tern. By the middle of August the chicks have become fully fledged, their plumage differing from that of the adult in summer, above described, in having the bill black, the forehead and crown white, or cream yellow, streaked with black; the head and nape dark ashy greyish-black, streaked with white; the upper side flushed with buff and blackish-grey; a band on the wing blackish-grey, with white margins; back and wing-coverts bluish-grey, marbled with greyish-black and yellowish-white, crossed with subterminal arrow-headed bars; ‘dark grey centres to the inner secondaries; more grey in the primaries, with less pronounced white inner margins” (Saunders); tail with the outer webs of its feathers grey, except the outermost which are always white; the throat, a collar on the hind neck, and the whole of the under side white; legs and feet yellow. Older immature birds differ from the above in the loss, partly by moult of the feathers, and partly, and chiefly, by a pigment change only, of the ashy mottlings and striations, the arrow-shaped markings and the buff blush on the upper side. Throughout the remainder of August and, if the season be not too stormy, during all September, these birds may be seen along our coasts in company with their parents, which have now assumed the winter dress, which differs from their summer plumage in having the forehead mottled with white, and the under side pinkish-white. With them there will be always some of the previous year’s birds in their winter attire, which may be recognized, from that of the adult in winter, by the dark band on the wing-coverts. The Roseate Tern is one of the first of the Svernine@ to leave us for a more genial climate. By the beginning of October many have gone and the rest are ready to leave. If, however, the weather has been stormy, they have often all departed before that date. As is well known, Terns are thrown into great disquietude by the approach of any intruder on their nesting ground, and will never disclose the site of their nest by returning home during his presence. Mr. Booth records the following ruse which he adopted in order to discover if a mate were present, on the Farne Islands, to a female of the Roseate Tern, which he had shot in the supposition that it was an Arctic Tern. ‘‘In order to obtain,” he says, “a clear and unin- terrupted view of the whole assemblage at each station, after alighting at their nesting quarters, I made use of the tactics often successfully employed with the Crow family, or the larger birds of prey. In company with three or four of the 35 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND Ecas, crew of the fishing-craft that had piloted us from the harbour, we approached oue of the colonies, and selecting a spot, at the distance of about sixty yards, where rough stones and litter were scattered among the slabs of rock, a shelter that afforded ample concealment was, with the help of a piece of old sail-cloth, speedily rigged up. After completing the work and placing the finishing touches on my hiding place, the men withdrew towards the boats. A very few minutes had elapsed when the Terns, after following the disturbers of their peace for some distance, gradually reappeared on the scene, and after hovering round for a time without detecting the alteration that had taken place, the main body settled quietly down, though a few still continued on wing. The greater number of those that had alighted shortly betook themselves to their domestic duties, others were busily occupied in cleaning their plumage, and the remainder, after stretching and going through various contortions, buried their heads in the feathers of the back and sought repose. Ample opportunities for making good use of the glasses were now otlered: o4-4 a5; “The tints on the breast of this species, when seen in life or immediately after death, are far deeper and richer than even the most enterprising colourists have ventured to depict; the rosy hue, however, soon commences to fade, and in less than an hour a considerable alteration has taken place. The depth of the colouring doubtless varies considerably in different individuals, and also according to the season of the year..... It is, I am of opinion, only through May and the early part of June that the rosy tints are to be seen in their full beauty.” The Roseate Tern “is at all times,’’ says Andubon, who observed it on the Florida Keys, ‘‘a noisy, restless bird, and on approaching its breeding place it incessantly emits its sharp shrill cries, resembling the syllables crah. Its flight is unsteady and flickering like that of the Arctic or Lesser Terns, but rather more buoyant and graceful. They would dash at us and be off again with astonishing quickness, making great use of their tail on such occasions. While in search of prey they carry the bill in the manner of the Common Tern—that is, perpen- dicularly downward, plunge like a shot with wings nearly closed, so as to immerse part of the body, and immediately re-ascend. They were seen dipping in this manner eight or ten times in succession, and each time generally secured a small fish. They usually kept in parties of from ten to twenty, followed the shores of the sand-bars and keys, moving backwards and forwards much in the manner of the Lesser Tern, and wherever a shoal of small fish was found, there they would hover and dash headlong at them for several minutes at a time.” ge NYA] NOWWOD SERRE - —“A_ THE COMMON TERN. 37 Family—LARIDAE. Subfamily—STERNINAE. ComMMon TERN. Sterna fluviatilis, NAUM. HE Common Tern is the most widely distributed species of the genus along our shores; especially is it abundant in Ireland and in the more southern parts of Great Britain. It occurs in summer in suitable localities on the islands all along the western side of Scotland (except the Outer Hebrides), as far north as the Firth of Clyde, the Sound of Mull and the Island of Coll. ‘In our cruise [in the Outer Hebrides] in June and July,” writes Harvie-Brown and Buckley, in their volume on the fauna of that region, ‘‘we may say we utterly failed to identify a single Common Tern anywhere to the north of the Island of Coll, and we paid more careful attention to the comparative distribution of the species than usual, even going so far as to shoot specimens at most of the localities visited where Terns were breeding.” On the northern counties of England and the eastern counties of Scotland it is very abundant, and is met with as far as the latitude of the Moray Firth, breeding on the shores, in the estuaries and far up the river valleys, even also on the inland lakes. It is to be met with on all the coasts of Ireland and on its interior loughs. The largest colonies in Britain are on Walney Island in the west, and on the Farne Islands on the east coast. North of the boundaries we have given, its place is taken by the Arctic Tern —the species next to be described. Beyond the British Isles the Tern is found on the coasts, estuaries and inland lakes throughout northern Europe; in most of the Mediterranean islands and in Palestine—where Canon Tristram, to his surprise, found it breeding in the Lakes of Antioch, with “no trace,” as he says, “whatever of the White- winged Black Tern, so common on the coast, and of the Whiskered Tern, which would certainly be found in such localities in Algeria or Tunis.” The Common Tern is found throughout all temperate Asia, north of the Himalayan Range. It migrates in winter to India, Ceylon, and along the coasts of West and South Africa. Vou. VI G 38 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. In the western hemisphere it only breeds south of the Arctic circle, whence as far south as Florida it is found on the coast and the inland lakes during summer; migrating, in winter, to the coasts of Brazil; but it is unknown on the western side of those continents. The Common Tern begins to arrive in Britain in small flocks, mostly of old birds, early in May, often during the prevalence of east wind. According to Mr. Booth, in spring and autumn, “while on their way to and from their breeding quarters, these Terns may be observed, in considerable numbers, off various parts of our coast line, the first comers usually put in an appearance towards the end of April, and all through May a stream of birds in larger or smaller parties continues, at short intervals, to pass onward towards the uorth. The most general movement appears to take place about the middle of May, when numerous flocks are occasionally met with in the Channel, heading steadily towards the east; after reaching the open sea their course is turned further north, some making for their breeding places on the shores of the firths and lochs of the Highlands, while the remainder continue their journey to more distant lands across the ocean.” The authors of “A Fauna of the Outer Hebrides” remark that however punctually Terns may make their first appearance, the actual time of their occupying the nesting sites ‘‘varies greatly with the weather, as also to some extent in different localities, especially, as we have noticed, in the Hebrides and western districts of Scotland. “Tt is not until some time after the first appearance of the Terns that the ova of many species of fish hatch out, nor do the fry at once approach shorewards and surfacewards. Many are hatched out on shoals and sand-banks, or even in deep water at a distance from land; and, in a late season especially, Terns and other birds have to feed at a longer distance from their haunts on this account. The time of the laying of the Terns is coincident with the time of their food supplies being most accessible to them. The natural history of birds and fishes in similar respects is therefore closely connected with each other’s existence.” After their arrival these Terns spend a week or so in inspecting their whereabouts. They are, of course, very nearly, if not quite, in their full summer plumage; and having mated they finally fix upon a breeding place. The male is indistinguishable from his partner. Both sexes have the forehead from the level of the nostril through the centre of the eye, from above the ear-coverts over the crown to the nape, black; the chin, cheeks, sides of the head (including the lower part of the eye and the ear-coverts), rump and upper tail-coverts, under tail-coverts, under wing-coverts and axillaries, white; the rest of the under side vinous-grey; THE COMMON TERN. 39 the general colour above pearl-grey; ‘secondaries narrowly margined with white ; outer primary with a black outer web and a broad streak of very dark grey next the white shaft on the inner web, the rest of the inner web white, except toward the tip, where it is dark ash-grey; inner primaries paler grey, with white ‘wedges’ and dark grey margins to the inner webs” (Saunders); the forked tail with the outer webs of its otherwise white feathers, grey—the outermost quills darkest; bill (its tip dark corneous), legs and feet, scarlet. Length 15 inches; wing 103; tail 63; outer feathers 7#; tarsus °85; middle toe with its claw ‘95. This species prefers for its nesting place low lying sandy islands, little above the level of the water, gravelly or pebbly shores, and often bare rocks. ‘The nest is merely a rock depression, or a hollow in the ground, occasionally lined with a few strands of vegetable fibre, dry grass, or sea-weed. The “ Migration” Committee, in their various annual Reports to the British Association, note many instances “of the irregularity of Terns’ behaviour at their nesting places, whether of the Arctic or the Common species; and perhaps still more markedly in the Little Tern. This unsettled habit is worthy of remark. ‘They often occupy and then abandon their nesting places for apparently no particular reason, for it is not invariably because they suffer persecution, though they are more easily scared than most other sea birds. In the Hebrides there are innumerable places where Terns might breed, having, to all appearance, equal advantages with the selected spots; and possibly the very fact that they are naturally timid birds causes them to take advantage very frequently of a change of residence. In our ‘“ Migration Report” for 1886, we find, for instance, that a flock of Terns arrived at Little Ross, in the Solway Firth, remained a week and then left. In this case, however, they were of course only resting and feeding, probably without any intention of breeding there; but in many other cases such movements take place suddenly, almost in mid-summer, or in the middle of their nesting season, the dates of which vary greatly at different stations. “For purposes of identification during his cruise in 1887, Harvie-Brown often shot some Terns from a colony, doth adult and immature, thereby bringing the whole Tern population close about his ears. He scanned all carefully, then lifting the dead birds carried them to a distance, and by throwing them up in the air, again brought the birds all around him. There need never be any difficulty in bringing Terns thus close enough for identification.” This sympathetic or inquisitive habit of the Terns is well known. If one of a flock be shot and fall wounded in the water, its companions immediately circle round in the air, uttering shrill screams and sweeping down close to it every few moments, as if encouraging it to rise. 40 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. The Rev. H. A. Macpherson, in his “ Fauna of Lakeland,” referring to the colony of Common Terns that frequents Walney Island, observes that ‘‘at the north end of the island the birds nestle on rough turf, but at the south end of Walney almost all the nests are placed among the sand-hills. There are exceptions to this practice. For example, in 1891 we found one nest of this species on the open beach, a hollow in the pebbles, lined with rabbit bones, containing two eggs; a second nest was also placed on the beach above high-tide mark, lined with small sticks, and containing a single egg. But we saw most nests in and among the bents of the tall sand-hills, carefully watched by hundreds of parent birds, which hover with shrill cries over the head of an intruder. Sometimes a bolder bird than the rest returns to its egg within full view, but the majority circle overhead, or dart angrily downwards until their solicitude has been lulled to rest. Searle ae He A much smaller number nest at the north end, lining some slight hollow in the turf with a few stems of grass, while even the newly hatched nestlings, with instinctive dread of danger, crouch in the grass almost motionless save for respiration.” This Tern is very intolerant of cattle pastured in the site chosen on the ground, and will attack them with violence; and if much intruded on will forsake the station. The Common Tern scoops out her nest-hollow, or lays her few straws in order on the ground, about the middle of June, and thereon deposits two, or not more than three, eggs, varying in size from 1% to 12 inches in length by about 12 inch in diameter. These have a general ground colour varying from ‘“‘stone-colour to ochreous-buff or olive-buff, with spots or drops of black often merging into con- fluent blotches, the underlying spots being faint purplish-grey and not very distinct. Sometimes the variation in the depth of the colour of the egg is very marked, and the ground colour is so deep a rufous-brown that the black markings are scarcely perceptible. The markings are generally distributed over the surface of the egg, but are sometimes congregated in confluent blotches round the larger end”’ (Sharpe). The nestlings emerge from the eggs after about three weeks incubation— during which one or other of the parents sits on the eggs all day, except in very sunny weather, and never at night, or when it is wet, are they left uncovered— enveloped in a light brownish-yellow down, spotted or mottled with black; the edge of the wing and underparts (except the throat, which is brown) being white; the forehead brown and the feet yellow. They grow rapidly during the first few hours, and one finds it hard to believe that, as Macpherson observes, “ they were ever packed away within a small and round egg-case.” As the nestling grows older the brown spots and mottlings become more distinct. When fully-fledged the forehead is brownish-white, the nape and rest of the head, including the ear- THE COMMON TERN. 41 coverts, are black; the hind neck, the throat, the chest, the rump and upper tail-coverts white; the shoulders and back bluish-grey, barred and mottled with greyish-brown; a broad band on the upper wing-coverts brownish-grey; over the upper parts there is generally a flush of buff; tail feathers with the outer webs greyish-brown; all the under side white; bill corneous, sometimes scarlet, its base reddish-yellow; legs and feet scarlet or reddish-brown; these and the bill increase in intensity of colour, according to Saunders, up to the autumn, and often quite rapidly change in October to dark, not resuming the light colour till next spring, the rump and upper tail-coverts also becoming grey. During their immaturity—which lasts till their second and in some instances to their third spring—the forehead is white, and the grey on the wing-coverts becomes less conspicuous and extensive. “On going up to a breeding place,” as Professor Macgillivray narrates, “‘which may always be discovered from a distance, as some of the birds are to be seen flying about it, one is sure to be met by several of them, which hasten to remonstrate with him by harsh cries and threatened blows; as he draws nearer, more of them leave their nests; and at length they are all on wing, wheeling and bounding, now high, now low, at times coming quite close, and increasing their cries, which resemble the syllables cree, cree, cree-ae. When walking along the sandy shore—no bird nearer, perhaps, than a quarter of a mile—you may see one or two of them coming up from a distance, increasing their cries as they approach, then wheeling and plunging over and around you, and at length flying off. Proceeding at a moderate height, they stop now and then, hover a moment, dip into the water, and secure a sand-eel or young coal-fish. Many attend on the fishermen or others who are catching sand-eels for bait or food, to fish up those which slip from them disabled. On such occasions they are very vociferous, as they also are when they have fallen in with a shoal of fry. They never dive; but I have often seen them alight on the water and swim a little, and sometimes a whole flock may be observed reposing on the placid bosom of the water, affording a very pleasing spectacle. They are very bad walkers, but on wing their move- ments are easy and elegant; they skim along, bounding by with great speed, ascend or descend, deviate to either side, stop short in an instant, hover in one spot like a hawk, drop, dive or plunge headlong with surprising adroitness. Their mode of flying, however, does not resemble that of a Swallow, and they obtain the popular name of Sea-Swallows rather on account of their forked tail.” If a luckless young Black-headed Gull ‘“‘ happens to enter the ternery, the Terns swoop at him savagely, and frequently with fatal results. In one instance I saw about a score of young Gulls, unable to fly, cross the beach and make for 42 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EcGs. the bare sands, hoping thus to elude their persecutors. But their flight was vain. for the Terns followed their retreating enemy, one Tern after another in rapid succession darting down to disable, if possible, their inoffensive victims, which never attempted to show fight” (Macpherson). Hardly is the breeding season over when the old birds begin to put off their nuptial dress and assume their winter plumage, which differs from the former attire in having the forehead and the crown mottled with white; the inner primaries black from loss of their “ frosting,” and the bill, legs and feet less brilliant red. During the autumn both old and young birds may be seen feeding together during the day, and sometimes under the moonlight, in large flocks, or sitting, during rough weather, on a sandy shore under the lea of a bank. In September they begin to leave the northern parts of the British Isles, on their southern migration, and before the middle of October all, except, perhaps, a few stragglers, who are to remain all winter, have betaken themselves from our shores to less sunless skies. Family—LA RIDE. Subfamily —STERNINGA:. ArcTic TERN. Sterna macrura, NAUM. HE Arctic Tern closely resembles the Common Tern; so much so, indeed, that for a long time the two were not recognized to be distinct species. It is not only an annual visitor, large numbers passing along our coasts, bound to other lands, but also a true British breeding bird. Its range within our islands is more northerly than that of the Common Tern, although the two mingle and nest together in one colony on the limits of their range. In England this Tern breeds on the Scilly Islands, and on the southern and $e NYAL OlLoUy QOSAVQeTll Ww . * fo Gores + Qe THE ARCTIC TERN. 43 eastern coasts, at one or two points, but nowhere abundantly except on the Farne Islands, where there were, in 1892, on two members of the group, known as the Knoxes and the Wideopens, more than one thousand nests. The Arctic Tern, how- ever, is especially fickle in regard to its breeding place, it may be in very scanty numbers in, or even absent entirely from, a locality where the previous year it nested very abundantly. They behaved in a most unaccountable manner one year on the Farne Islands, as one ornithologist has recorded. ‘‘ They inhabited their usual breeding spots, laid their eggs and sat on them until a few were hatched, when suddenly every Arctic Tern left. They first left the ‘ Longstone,’ the island furthest from the shore; about a week afterwards they left the ‘ Brownsman,’ which is one of the middle islands; and ten days afterwards they left the ‘ Knoxes and Wide- opens’ in the same way. There were very few young birds hatched on the ‘Longstone’ and ‘ Brownsman’ when the old birds left, but a large number on the ‘ Wideopens,’ and not a single young Arctic Tern lived to fly away. The old birds stopped about the coast for some time, and seemed in a very weak condition During all this time the Sandwich Terns seemed to flourish as well as ever, and their young were all hatched out and took to the wing in as large numbers as usual.” The writer concluded that “they lived off different food, chiefly sand-eels, while the principal food of the Arctic Tern seems to be a very small fish like a tiny herring.” Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley have also recorded that in Hoy, in the Orkney Islands, ‘‘is a flat on which, twenty years previous to 1888, no Terns had bred. About that time a colony took possession of it and bred for fifteen successive years, when they deserted the place.” On the west coast of England the chief resort of the Arctic Tern is Walney Island, off the Lancashire mainland. In Ireland this species is a regular summer visitant, and is more abundantly met with on the west coast, though it is by no means infrequent on the eastern side It nests on Lough Carra and Lough Mask, Co. Mayo, its sole fresh water breeding place in Ireland. In Scotland it is the most common species of Tern, and breeds (sometimes in association with the Common Tern) along all its coasts—especially of the islands— as far north as the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Outside Britain the breeding range of this species is very wide; it nests all round the circumpolar regions of the northern hemisphere, up as high as within eight degrees of the pole, and perhaps higher, and as low as the soth parallel of latitude on the European and the 42nd on the American side. During winter it spreads along the Mediterranean and down the western coast of Africa, rounding the Cape to the eastern side; in the western hemisphere it migrates as far south 44 BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs, as Brazil, crossing by the isthmus of Panama to the northern parts of Peru and Chili. The Arctic Tern arrives in this country on its northern migration, about the same date as the Common Tern, and is seen along all our coasts (though but rarely inland) towards the close of the month of April, and at a correspondingly later date at stations further north, some of which may not be reached till June or July. In the Orkney Islands, Harvie-Brown and Buckley, in their Fauna of that region, note that the Arctic Terns ‘‘appear to arrive with remarkable punctuality between the 15th and 17th of May, there being only one record as early as May 6th.” After their arrival they congregate on rocks or on the shore, and fora time appear to have no object in life but the catching of fish and the delights of feeding. Before the end of a fortnight, however, their separating off in pairs indicates that they have been pursuing other pleasures. The sexes are alike, and in their summer or breeding plumage the adults so closely resemble the Common Tern iu general colour, that it is difficult to distin- guish the two species. The Arctic Tern, however, may be recognized by having the bill shorter and more slender than that in S. fluviatilis, and, in the old birds, of an entirely crimson colour, without any black on the culmen or at the tip, while in length it measures 13 inches as against 2 inches in the latter. The tail is also longer (exceeding the closed wings) as well as more pointed; the coral-red tarsus is at all ages shorter than that of the Common Tern, never exceeding the length of the middle toe (without its claw); the under surface is greyer, and the silvery grey of the back ascends higher on the neck, leaving only a narrow streak from the base of the bill below and behind the eyes white; while the dark edging along the inner side of the white shaft of the primaries is narrower and less conspicuous. Length 144 inches; wing 103; tail 7 to 8, with its fork 5 inches deep; tarsus ‘65 to ‘7; and the middle toe with its claw °85 inch. “In its habits,” writes Mr. Seebohm, ‘“‘ the Arctic Tern differs very little from its relative, the Common Tern. During its sojourn on our coasts it frequents rocky islands and sandy islets, and portions of the mainland coast that are both secluded and furnish a suitable nesting place. Like all the Terns the Arctic Tern is gregarious and lives in colonies, sometimes of enormous size, at others consisting only of a few pairs. On the wing it is even more graceful than the Common Tern. It looks the perfection of elegance as it beats along the coast, its long wings moved now slowly, now quickly, in a very Gull-like manner. Flocks of these birds usually hunt for food in company, flying along in a loose straggling manner. Every now and then one of them drops suddenly down into the water as if shot, and rises again with a little struggling fish in its bill. Sometimes it THE ARcTIC TERN 45 will convey its capture to the nearest land, or not unfrequently sit on the water until it has eaten it. It is surprising with what force this bird descends; and the splash it makes can be heard for half a mile across the water. Like the Common Tern it rarely perches on the ground, save at its breeding place, or when about to rest or sleep, and it seldom tries to walk far. ‘The air is its true element, and its long narrow wings seem never tired of bearing its little body to and fro. It sometimes floats buoyantly on the water for a short time, but never dives.” The Arctic Tern is almost exclusively marine in its nesting habits, very rarely going out of sight of the sea, and by preference selecting an uninhabited island. Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley, however, state in their ‘‘ Fauna of Sutherland, Caithness and West Cromarty,” that it may be found breeding ‘on the banks of a loch or river, some distance from the sea. One favourite site is in the vicinity of a moorland loch about four miles from Wick, and the birds in passing to and fro from the sea always follow the course of the river.” Its nest is generally a hollow scraped in the sand, without any soft lining; sometimes a few small pebbles are laid round it. Mr. Godfrey, who observed it breeding in company with the Common Gull, and other species, in a little island, clothed with broad flag-like vegetation, in Loch Grummavoe, on the mainland of Shetland, says that ‘‘ most -of the Terns’ nests were situated on the grassy upper tract, and each was formed of grass and dry flags placed together without any tidiness or compactness; but in sufficiently thick layers to keep the eggs dry.” It generally breeds in large colonies, with the nests close together. Mr. Trevor-Battye, however, writes in the “Ibis” in regard to his Spitzbergen experiences: “T never came upon any place where these birds were nesting in large colonies. Three pairs at the most would occupy one part of the beach, and their nests would be far apart; then at the distance of a mile or so you might come upon a pair or two more. . . . A pair of Arctic Terns were for several days anxious to nest within a few paces of our large group of tents, and were little disturbed by passers, only flying off for a few yards and then returning to the spot, where they made many false nests. The Arctic Tern, when preparing its nest, works with both the shoulders, using its feet only as a pivot. After turning round and scooping thus, it rests for a little with its bill at the ground near. On moving the bird after one of these resting-spells, I have found little stones and bits of shells in the bottom of the nest. I had formerly supposed that these and the small bits of sea-weed occasionally seen in a Tern’s nest, were there by chance, but I am not sure now that they are not put there by deliberate act. “J do not think that the Skuas often succeed in robbing an Arctic Tern’s nest. One pair of Terns in Advent Bay did all the fishing in the neighbour- Vor. VI H 46 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs hood of the nest, and the appearance of a Skua within half a mile was the signal for attack. Neither an Arctic nor a Buffon’s Skua has a chance with a pair of Arctic Terns. “The Arctic Terns have a habit which I have described in ‘Pictures in Prose’ of Sterna minuta as observed in Norfolk; but the account so exactly fits the Arctic Terns that I may be forgiven, perhaps, for repeating it here: ‘Returned from its quest the bird, with a fish in its bill, circles round and round and lower and lower over its mate, and presently drops down beside her. Then he begins a series of extraordinary evolutions. With head thrown back, wings drooping and tail cocked straight up, he struts—no other word expresses it—about in front of his mate. The attitude, a most comical one is exactly that assumed by the ‘Laughing Jackass’ Kingfisher when laughing. He jumps at his mate as if daring her to take the fish. Then he will fly round for a bit, only to settle again and repeat the play.’ ” The bird feeds largely on pteropods, the stomach of one dissected by Mr. Battye being full of these; still higher in the Arctic regions an amphipodous crustacean (Anonyx nugax) appears to form its chief diet. On our own coasts small fishes are the staple of its food. Captain Fielden records that during the Arctic expedition of 1875-76, during which, acting as naturalist, he collected a large mass of most valuable observations on the zoology of the inhospitable regions traversed by the expedition. ‘“ On August 21st, [1875] we found,” he says, “eight or ten pairs [of this species] breeding on a small islet off the north end of Bellot Island (Lat. 81° 44' N.): the land at this date was covered with snow; and on the islet it lay about three inches deep. In one nest I found a newly hatched Tern; it seemed quite well and lively in its snow cradle. The parent birds had evidently thrown the snow out of the nest as it fell; for it was surrounded by a border of snow marked by the feet of the old birds, and raised at least two inches above the general level. The Terns of this islet were rather shy, none coming within range till I had handled the young one. There seemed to be abundance of fish in the pools between the floes, as the old birds were flying with them in their mandibles. The stomach of the female which I killed was empty; but that of the nestling contained remains of fish.” The Arctic Tern begins to lay in the beginning of June and deposits two to three eggs, two perhaps more commonly than three, very similar to those of the Common Tern. They are, however, slightly smaller and more pear-shaped, somewhat more spotted than blotched and the ground colour is darker. It takes a very good oologist indeed to separate the eggs of the one and of the other out THE ARcTIC TERN. _ AT of a mixed heap of both. From their excellence as an article of food they are gathered in enormous numbers for the market. The nestling of the Arctic Tern, which is hardly to be told from that of the Common ‘Tern, has the back marked with black; forehead and throat black; beneath white or isabelline, with some brown on the flanks and hind abdomen. ““When its breeding places,” writes Dr. Macgillivray, “are invaded it evinces great anxiety and petulance, flying up and meeting the intruder, screaming out its creaking cries, hovering and bounding around him, sweeping close to his head, and sometimes, though very rarely, hitting him with its wings.” The young birds remain close to the nesting place till they are fully fledged. They have then the feathers of the upper surface, wings and tail pale pearl-grey, with subterminal bars of sandy-buff; a dark grey band on the upper wing- coverts; the forehead white, the hind part of the head and the ear-coverts greyish black, or mixed with whitish spots; the cheeks, back of the neck and the lower parts buffy-white, sometimes tinged with pearl blue; feet for several months yellowish, afterwards brown; the bill yellow at the base and corneous at the tip. Young Arctic Terns may be distinguished—a by no means easy task on a general survey—from the young of the Common Tern, by the length of the tarsus and by the larger amount of the white colour on their outer primaries. The young birds are hardly well fledged till they begin to lose, generally by pigment changes, occasionally by moult, the buff of the upper surface for a cloudy white, while the dark brown or greyish black bars become paler. The forehead and crown are then nearly white; the under-surface white; the bill and feet black. After their first spring the black of the head is much mottled with white. After their first true moult in the second autumn, the birds assume a dress differing from the adults’ winter plumage in having the crown and forehead almost white; the dark grey band on the upper wing-coverts continues as in the younger plumage, but there is more grey on the outer webs of the tail feathers; the bill and feet are black. The moult of the following spring brings the young Arctic Tern into its first nuptial dress, above described; while after its next autumn change, following immediately after the breeding season, it assumes its first adult winter garb, which differs from its just discarded dress by the black on the forehead and crown becoming mottled with white, while the under surface becomes whiter, and the bright red of the bill and feet loses its brilliancy. At the end of the breeding season the young birds, after they have taken charge of their own destinies, very often assemble together till August when they begin to migrate 48 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs southward in advance of their parents. On their return the following year, they again keep very much to themselves, taking toa rock or asand bank out at sea, and not intruding on the breeding colony. The migration of the Arctic Terns to a southern latitude may be observed from August to October,—a date at which all the Terns, except those that have by some accident been detained, have left our shores. Family—LARIDAE. Subfamily—STERNINAE. LITTLE TERN. Sterna minuta, LINN. HIS beautiful Tern is the smallest of all the European species, being only about half the size of the Arctic Tern; and is less numerous in Britain than the other species already described. In former times it had more widely distributed breeding places than now; for in many localities where it once nested it is to-day quite unknown. It breeds along the east and west coasts of both England and Scotland as far north as the Orkney Islands. Its chief nurseries in England are the Farne Islands, where it is, perhaps, more numerous than anywhere else in our islands; it occupies a few sites on the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts; and nests also on Romney Marsh, and on Waluey Island on the west. Of the two species breeding in Romney Marsh, the Common and the Lesser, ‘‘ the latter is by far the more numerous,” writes Mr. Boyd Alexander, “but the numbers of both have sadly diminished of late years. Both species keep separate in their breeding haunts, the Lesser Tern preferring rather the close proximity to the sea. The restricted breeding area taken up by the Common Terns is distinctly prejudicial to the safety of their eggs. The children of the fishermen and coast-guard officers soon discover these spots, and the eggs are robbed right and left for purposes of eating. Over these places sheep have invariably been feeding, and where they have poked ¥ ee € uYnpe NYaAp ATLL] for oa THE LITTLE TERN. 49 their noses, forming small stone-padded hollows, the eggs are more often than not laid.” In Scotland it breeds in the Orkneys and the Hebrides, and in many of the inland lochs. Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley say :—‘ The curious distribution of this species on the east coast and west coast of Scotland is worthy of remark. If we examine even only the occurrences of certain species without their nesting places, and on migration or distribution alone, we find a curious and striking affinity between this west coast island of Tiree and the Moray Firth, species turning up at Tiree which we know to occur in the Moray Firth, but which are rarer or almost absent from localities on the west coast north of Tiree. We know also the undoubted ‘ fly-line,’ or ‘ tide-way,’ of birds up and down the Spey valley, though not emphasized by a lighthouse or lightship at the entrance of the Moray Firth; and we cannot do otherwise than consider the island of Tiree as a great point d’appur of migrants, both from the eastward and from the north-west, the perhaps united streams of which then pour down toward the south and south-east va the Rhinns of Islay..... ‘ In Ireland its main nursery is on a small lake in County Mayo; a few places round the coast are also tenanted by them. Beyond the British Isles, according to Mr. Saunders, this Tern breeds in Europe from “about 60° N. (rare on the Baltic), as far south as the Mediterranean and the Caspian,” and in North Africa. In winter it migrates down the western coast of Africa as far as the Cape. In Asia it breeds in ‘‘ Trans-Caspia, Turkestan and Northern India,” while in winter it finds its way to Burmah and Java. The Little Tern does not occur in the western hemisphere; but it is represented by closely allied species. The Little Tern arrives in England from its winter quarters about the middle of May, and begins to nest toward the end of the month. The two sexes are similar, except that the female is slightly smaller and has the tail feathers rather shorter, and in breeding plumage they have the line from the bill through the eye, the crown and the nape deep black; the forehead, the cheeks, the sides of the face, the lower rump, the upper tail-coverts, the tail and the entire under surface, including the under wing-coverts and the axillaries, pure white; the back and the wing-coverts pearl-grey; ‘the first three quills with black or blackish shafts, and blackish in colour, broadly margined on the inner web nearly to the tip with white; rest of the quills French-grey” (Dresser) ; bill, which is long, slender, curved and very pointed, yellow, tipped with black; legs and feet bright orange-yellow. Length 93-10 inches; wing 6:-6%; tail 3; tarsus ?# inch. 50 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. The nest of the Little Tern is a slight hollow on shingle banks near the sea, or on a sandy beach, sometimes lined with vegetable debris; but oftener a mere depression on the shingle inlaid with small pebbles, in which are deposited two or three eggs, the former number being the more common. In colour the eggs are hardly distinguishable from those of the Common Tern; and are covered over with brown or black spots—those underneath the shell paler and of a purplish-grey colour, or irregularly blotched and dotted with the same colour. In dimensions they are about 1% inch in length, by % inch in breadth. The nestling is covered with a buff down, black on the head, grey on the back; the throat buff, but the rest of the under surface fawny white. During the time they have eggs, or while the nestlings are still unfledged, the parents are very daring, darting down, or hovering closely over the intruder, and evincing more and more acute anxiety and alarm, the closer he approaches the eggs or young. The knowing depredator can thus cause himself to be guided to the very spots where the Tern desires him least to go. The Little Tern will also bravely attack Rooks or Crows which come too near to their colony. The Little Tern, in its full fledged plumage, is thus described by Dresser :— ‘*Crown brownish-grey, marked with black, becoming black on the nape and [after the second year] on the mark through the eye; upper parts dull French-grey, the feathers margined with blackish-brown [bars], outside of which is a narrow white margin; the tail as in the adult, but shorter, and slightly marked with blackish- grey at the tip; quills as in the adult; under parts pure white.” For a short period after becoming fledged, the upper surface is flushed with reddish-buff, which very early fades. The immature birds are easily recognized from the old, during their first autumn, by the darker plumage of their upper side. This species does not exhibit such marked seasonal differences as most of the other species already described. The Little Tern changes very little between its becoming fully fledged and the moult of its second autumn, when the black bars are lost and it assumes its first winter plumage, which differs from the winter dress of the adult only in being darker. In the following spring the Little Tern puts on its first nuptial plumage, which, as soon as incubation is over, it exchanges, as all the adult birds do, for its winter garb. This is similar to the summer plumage, but the head becomes somewhat whiter, and the grey on the back slightly darker; the outer primaries rather darker near the end; and the white parts sometimes flushed with French-grey. “In the elegance of its buoyant flight,” writes that acute and ardent ornith- ologist, Professor Macgillivray, “as it skims over the waters, or shoots along on its way to and from its breeding place, the tiny creature must be an object of THE LITTLE TERN. 51 admiration to every lover of nature. You may see a pair coming up from a distance, flying at the height of a few yards over the waves, their long wings winnowing the air and impelling them im starts, as it were, as they wend their way in undulating and wavering movements. Suddenly their flight is arrested by a large pool left on the sands by the retiring tide; with quick beats of their wings, they hover stationary, or but slightly shifting place, and with downward pointed bill seem intent on something which they perceive in the water. One drops, but not like a stone, dips, but with upraised wings, and rises with a small fish in its bill. The other is similarly successful. Onward they proceed, now and then emitting a shrill cry, and with gentle beats of their wings. Far ahead is a flock engaged in picking up their prey, and onward they speed to join their kindred. At many miles from their breeding places they may be met with, and yet they generally do not wander very far, as they can procure an abundant supply of food along the sands. Sometimes they may be seen sitting on the smooth water, and occasionally resting on the sands...... At the mouth of the [Mill-Den] Burn [near Aberdeen] is a flat recess in the sands, the banks retiring to some distance from the general line of the coast, and there, in spots where the little heaps of dried sea-weed had collected the dried sand about them, the colony had settled ..... The eggs are very large for the size of the bird, rather broadly ovate, but somewhat pointed.” The Little Tern takes its departure from our shores early in the autumn. About the end of August, or early in September, old and young in flocks, recruited by birds from various districts of our own area and from places beyond the British Isles, begin to move southward, and for several weeks they may be observed, by travellers crossing the English Channel, winging their way towards their winter quarters. 52 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGs. Family—LA RIDE. Subfamily—S TERNINAS. Sooty TERN. Sterna fuliginosa, GMEL. HIS species has only slender claims to be included in the British avi-fauna. There are but three recorded genuine occurrences of the bird in our islands. The first was shot at Tutbury, near Burton-on-Trent, in 1852; the second near Wallingford, in Berkshire, in 1869, and the third, an adult, was caught alive about three miles from Bath, on the 4th or 5th October, 1885, ‘‘ the weather,” according to Mr. A. C. Foot, by whom the bird was sent to Mr. Howard Saunders, “being windy and the floods extending over the meadows.” On the continent of Europe it has been noted on two or three occasions at most, so that altogether it is an extremely rare visitor to the north-western parts of the eastern hemisphere. It is mainly an inter- and juxta-tropical species, with a special affection for isolated islands and reefs; but it stretches northward on the eastern side of America as far as the Florida Keys, where it breeds in large numbers; and it has been taken as high as the latitude of Massachussets. It is almost unknown on the South American side of the Pacific. It extends beyond the tropics in both directions along the African, Asian and Australasian coasts. The Sooty Tern is known under the name of ‘‘ The Wideawake,” and on the island of Ascension, where it nests in enormous numbers, its breeding places have long been celebrated under the designation of ‘‘ Wideawake Fairs.” Similar large colonies of this bird in the Tortugas have been described by Andubon. ‘‘ No description,” as Captain Sperling, speaking of the first named locality, says ‘‘can give an adequate idea of the effect produced by the thousands upon thousands of these wild sea-birds floating and screaming over this arid cinder-bed, the eggs and young scattered so thickly on the ground that in some instances it was impossible to avoid crushing them and the bleached bones of dead birds distributed in all directions.” According to Mr. Penrose, who described a collection brought to England by Dr. Gill, from Ascension, there are three ‘fairs’ on the island itself, one very much larger than the others. The principal “fair” “was just at about its full height at the end of December, and had been going on for about six weeks before 9 NYA[ ALOOS . = Sees < > yer YOYRAALO ee a ——— : Se THE Sooty TERN. 53 that. The first appearance of these birds in 1877 was during the first week in October, and they continued to arrive daily for about two months. Their annual coming is said to be somewhat irregular, and they are stated to breed three times in two years, concerning which Mr. Howard Saunders has kindly allowed me to make the following extract from a letter to him from Mr. Unwin, dated September 5th, 1879. ‘‘ The ‘Wideawake’ visits this island at, and remains for, very uncertain intervals, not every eight months [as has been asserted]; of this I am very certain from nearly four years’ experience. Were not their eggs used so largely for food in this barren place, one could form some idea as to the length of time nature intended them to remain. I may, of course, be miles out in my opinion; but I fancy that, were it possible to take away the eggs immediately they are laid, the birds would not leave for a very considerable period. Last year they remained months longer than usual, owing to a very unusual downpour of rain, which flooded their breeding ground and killed thousands of young birds. They left about May and were back in August. It seems to me that no matter how often an egg is taken, another is laid, and the old birds still persevere in trying to rear a young a “Hach bird normally lays only one egg; but when constantly plundered the same bird lays several times; and those who collect get, in a good morning’s work, about two hundred dozen eggs. This fairly shows the number of birds and their closeness together. The eggs are said not to be so good as Plover’s eggs, having a slight fishy flavour.” Mr. Bourne, who visited the island of Diego Garcia in 1885, writes that when he arrived on September 15th, Terns ‘‘were breeding in countless numbers on some of the less frequented parts of the island. The dark grey Terns [Sterna bernsteint| build rough nests composed of a heap of sticks and leaves piled up in the forks of trees and bushes; in each of these a single egg is laid, on which the female sits. The black and white Terns [S. /w/iginosa] lay a single egg on the bare ground, which is apparently hatched by the heat of the sun, for I never saw one of these birds sitting ..... As soon as the breeding season was over, the number of Terns diminished very considerably; it seems that they assemble in these remote islands for breeding, and fly off to continents and larger islands for the remainder of the year.” In full breeding plumage both sexes (which are similar at all corresponding ages) have the centre of the forehead, with a stripe extending to over, but not beyond, the eye, the sides of the head and neck, the chin, throat, breast, and under surface of the wings, pure white; under tail-coverts, abdomen and flanks, greyish-white; the loral stripe, which quite encircles the eye, the head, and the Vou VI. I 54 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. entire upper surface, sooty-black ; the forked tail sooty-black, the outermost feather on each side white, with the exception of the terminal half of the inner web which is greyish-black; bill, legs and feet black, the web between the inner and the middle toe but little excised. Length 16 to 17 inches; ridge of bill 2:0; wing 11°70; tail 7°5, and its fork 4°1; tarsus 0°92. The Sooty Tern forms no nest, merely scratching a hollow in the sand or on the bare ground, in which generally a solitary egg is laid, although two and three have been found in one nest. These are smooth and shining, of a white or bluish- white ground-colour to a warm buff, with markings, very variable in amount, consisting of spots or blotches, red-brown or purplish-grey in colour. In dimensions the eggs are about 2 inches in length by 13 inches in diameter. The chicks are, like those of other Terns, hatched covered with down, which is of a brown colour, tipped with white above; and with the breast and under surface white. ‘“‘When half fledged,” as Mr. Saunders writes, ‘‘the feathers of the mantle are blackish, with broad white tips, which gradually wear down. When the bird is fully fledged these white tips are much narrower, the feathers of the upper parts are sooty-brown, and the under parts are also of a somewhat paler brown, becoming lighter towards the vent; bill and feet reddish-brown.” The immature birds have their sooty plumage suffused with brown or grey, but much paler underneath; the upper wing-coverts have white tips; the tail is only slightly unequal, instead of being forked; and its outer feathers have their external webs brownish. The winter plumage of the Sooty Tern is hardly distinguishable from that of the summer, but on the crown of the head and in the black loral streak there occur a few white feathers. These birds are ‘‘ wonderfully powerful flyers, and must at times be for many days on the wing. Even whilst catering for their young they are supposed to travel great distances, as Mr. Gill, whilst one day at the largest ‘ fair’ [on Ascension] caught a bird in his hand with a small fish in its beak, which was not recognized as an inhabitant of Ascension waters. This bird must have been fishing at some distance”’ (Penrose). After their duties of incubation are over these Terns take their departure, and disperse along the coasts of the continents that may be nearest to them. THE LESSER Sooty TERN—THE NOpDpy. 55 Family—L ARIDAG. Subjamily—S TERNINE. LESSER Sooty TERN. Sterna anastheta, SCOP. SPECIMEN of this Tern—and the only one known to have reached the British Islands—was taken at one of the light-ships, at the mouth of the ‘Vhames, in 1875. Family—LARIDA. Subfamily—S TERNIN-E. Noppy. Anous stolidus, LAUNN. NLY three specimens of this tropical Tern have been taken in Great Britain, or, indeed, in Europe. Two were shot in Ireland in 1830, and the third on the Dee Sands, Cheshire, in 1891. The latter is preserved by Captain Congreve, Burton Hall, Neston, Cheshire. It is said that the species appears occasionally also in St. George’s Channel. The forehead white, the crown ashy-grey; sides of the head, the throat, with the upper neck and under wing-coverts, sooty-brown, tinged with grey; the lores and feathers round the eye greyish-black; rest of the plumage sooty or chocolate-brown ; tail and primaries blackish-brown; bill black; legs and feet dull reddish-brown, 56 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eaacs the webs darker, the claws black. Length 144 inches; wing 11 inches; tail 53; tarsus 1 inch. Both sexes are alike. “The Rocks of St. Paul’s, nearly under the Equator, in the Atlantic Ocean,” as Mr. Darwin observed, “were almost covered with the rude and simple nests of this bird, made with a few pieces of sea-weed. The females were sitting upon their eggs (in February) and by the side of many of their nests part of flying fish were placed, I suppose, by the male bird for his partner to feed on during the labour of incubation.” Famtly—LARIDA. Subjamil) —LARINA. SABINE’S GULL. Xema sabinii, J. SABINE. HIS very beautiful Gull was first recognized as a British species by Mr. W. Thompson, author of the ‘“‘ Natural History of Ireland,” in 1834, when he exhibited, before the Linnean Society, a specimen shot in Belfast Bay, in 1822, which had been, however, previously shown before the Natural History Society of Belfast, in 1833, under the name of Larus minutus. Since that date it has been taken many times, generally in autumn, both in England (chiefly on its southern and south-eastern coasts) and in Ireland on its eastern side. From Scotland it has been more rarely recorded, though it has been captured in at least four instances. The first specimen was shot in October, 1877, on the Firth of Forth, and the second was picked up near the Loch of Sarclet, Caithness, in June, 1885—a ‘‘lovely”’ adult in summer plumage. A third adult bird was shot on Loch Spilvie, in Mull, in September, 1888; a fourth, but immature specimen, was caught at Sliddery, Arran, in September, 1897, and presented to the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, by Mr. John Paterson. YaWWAS &§ 11ND S.ANIAVS AUNLVNW] SABINE’S GULL. 57 This species derives its trivial name from Captain Sabine, who discovered it on the west coast of Greenland, during the North-West Passage Expedition, of which he was so distinguished a member. Sabine’s Gull is an arctic and sub-arctic breeder, not nesting, however, lower than about 72° N. latitude. During the winter it migrates to less severe regions. In the eastern hemisphere it is found on all its northern coasts and islands, except Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land; in the western hemisphere it descends along the Atlantic coasts nearly to the Tropic of Cancer, and on the Pacific side as far as 12° S. latitude. In its summer or breeding plumage, the female is in every way similar—as it is also in size—to the male. The entire head to below the nape, and down in front to the upper breast, slate blue circumscribed by a distinct narrow border of deep black; the lower neck down to the upper back white, washed with pale lavender; the whole of the under surface of the body below the collar, the rump, the upper tail-coverts and the tail pure white; the back, the wing-coverts and inner secondaries (the tips of the latter and the greater wing-coverts, to more than half their length, white) lavender-grey; the outer lesser wing-coverts, the primary-coverts, and the outer five primaries, black (giving a black edge to the whole external margin of the wing); the primaries are tipped with white, ‘‘ having the inner half of the web longitudinally white, but this not reaching to the end of the quill on the first five primaries; the black mucli diminished on the next two primaries; the inner primaries and the secondaries being white” (Sharpe) ; bill black at the base, above and below; yellow on the anterior part of the upper, and orange on the corresponding part of the lower, mandible; a vermilion ring round the eye, with a white spot below it; legs and feet blackish-brown. Length 13 inches, ridge of beak 1; wing 11; tail 4% (fork vo); tarsus 13; middle toe and its claw 1%. In examples a year before reaching maturity, writes Mr. Howard Saunders, “the white tips to the outer primaries are less conspicuous, and there is a consider- able amount of black on the sixth primary from the outside.” Sabine’s Gull builds about the middle of June or the beginning of July, laying its eggs sometimes on the bare ground, sometimes in a slight depression made by its body, among such scanty herbage, growing or collected, as the region it has selected can provide. The birds nest together in small colonies, a few feet distant from each other, often in association with Terns. Sir John Richardson records that this Gull was breeding on an island where he was camped, and that the eggs were laid in hollows on the short mossy turf. They rarely exceed two in number, and are a little over 1: inches in length by 1% in breadth. In ground-colour Vot. VI. K 58 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs they are dull brownish-olive, blotched with reddish-brown, or spotted with indistinct dull brown, more abundant in some examples at the larger end, though as a rule pretty evenly distributed over the egg. The young, which are hatched towards the end of July, are covered with down, reddish-yellow on the upper side, greyish-white beneath, and spotted all over with black. In about a month after leaving the egg, the young birds are fully fledged, and have, according to Mr. Saunders, the forehead dull white; the head grey, mottled with buff; feathers of the upper parts ash-grey, with the margins buffish at first and becoming greyer as the bird grows older; tail feathers broadly tipped with black; under parts chiefly white; on the sides of the neck an ash-brown band, which is seldom complete and very variable in extent; bill horn-brown; legs and toes flesh colour to brownish. As is the rule among the Lavine, young Gulls do not reach maturity so soon as young Terns, but take several years to attain to their fully adult plumage. The slate-grey and the ashy colour on various parts of the body, which are marks of the young bird, become less year by year, till they finally disappear. The adult in winter, as described by Mr. Saunders, is similar to the adult in breeding dress, but the head is white, with grey streaks, which coalesce on the nape and hind neck, producing a greyish-black appearance; the quills are worn and faded in colour, and their tips abruptly broken off, as if cut artificially, the bill is duller in colour and the tarsi brown. ‘‘ By the beginning of April,’ he adds, ‘‘the new primaries, with broad white tips, are fully developed, and the head is plentifully sprinkled with slate-grey.” Sabine’s Gull differs from all other Gulls, except the Little Gull, in having a forked instead of a square tail. In this character it approaches the Terns; as it does also in manner of flight.* It rarely plunges into the water, as Gulls are in the habit of doing, but hovers gracefully close over the water to pick up a morsel, or alights for an instant in the water and rises again on the wing so lightly that scarcely a ripple is made on the surface, as Mr. KE. W. Nelson has related from observations made by him on this species in Alaska. In other habits, as described by the bird’s discoverer, Captain (afterwards Sir Edward) Sabine, Xema sabintt resembles a Tern. ‘They flew,” he says, ‘with impetuosity towards persons approaching their nests and young, and when one bird of a pair was killed, its mate, though frequently fired at, continued on wing close to the spot where it lay. * Mr. Abel Chapman, as long ago as 1886, pointed out that the tail of the Little Gull, in immature plumage, ‘‘is distinctly forked, shewing an affinity with the Terns,” (Zool. 1886, p. 457). We have repeatedly verified this observation.—H.A.M. THE WEDGE-TAILED GULL. 59 They got their food on the sea-beach, standing near the water’s edge, and picking up the marine insects which are cast on shore.” This Gull feeds not only on the coast, but in brackish pools which may be some distance from the sea, where they find small fishes and crustaceans. As noted at the beginning of this article, Sabine’s Gull has been seen most frequently on the southern and eastern coasts of England, and only on the eastern side of Ireland. Mr. Gurney expresses his belief that the appearance of this Gull and many other North American birds, on the eastern instead of the western aspects of the British Isles, which are nearer to the United States, is due to the west winds of autumn, which these birds love to fly agaist. ‘Certainly if it were not for the west wind,’ he says, “there would not be that annual east-to-west autumnal migration which there is to Norfolk and on the east coast of England generally. The direction taken by the birds would be changed if the prevailing winds blew from any other quarter than west, for they like flying against it, account for it how we may, though it is not to be denied that there are now and then exceptious.” Famtly—LA RIDE, Subfamily—LARINAE. WeEDGE-TAILED GULL. Rhodostethia rosea, MACGILL. HE Wedge-tailed Gull is the most beautiful, perhaps, of all the Gulls. It is with much regret, therefore, that we must admit that its claim to a place among the birds of the British Isles is very slender, for there is but one record of its having been taken within our area—in Yorkshire—and that as long ago as the year 1846. It is a bird, however, which has long attracted great interest; for till quite recently nothing was known of its history, and many were the conjectures 60 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. as to what that mysterious country, in which it spent the summer and brought forth its brood, might prove to be. That it nested in very high latitudes appeared certain, and on this fact it was firmly held by many that there must be islands or considerable masses of land in the neighbourhood of the North Pole—a theory dispelled by Nansen’s investigations. The Wedge-tailed Gull is often known also as Ross’ Rosy Gull, after Sir J. C. Ross, the intrepid navigator, who discovered it, in 1823, on Melville Peninsula (between 60° and 70° N. latitude), during his Arctic Expedition. The bird had, however, been brought to Europe from Greenland by Gieseake, and acquired, in 1818, by the Imperial Museum in Vienna, where it remained during that interval undetected and undescribed. The distribution of this rare Gull is still imperfectly known. It has, however, been recorded from Melville Peninsula, in latitude 69° 30’ N., and from Boothia, across by Greenland, to the Faroe Islands.* It has been reported, by Parry, in 82° N. latitude on the meridian of Spitzbergen; and it had been shot, according to Lieutenant Payer, near Franz-Josef Land. The zoologist of the Jeannette expedition shot eight specimens, near the 27th parallel, three of which he brought back with him, despite the hardships of the terrible journey, which he and his companions made across the ice, after the loss of their vessel in 1881. Beyond the bird’s occurrence in these few localities, nothing was known of the region of its nativity till the return of Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, from his celebrated expedition across the arctic circumpolar seas, and its life history remains still known only to the bird itself. When the fram, as Nansen records in his ‘ Farthest North,’ was in about 81° 4o’ N. latitude, and 120° E. longitude:—‘‘On August 3rd [1894] a remarkable occurrence took place; we were visited by the Arctic Rose Gull (Rhodostethia rosea). I wrote as follows about it in my diary:— ‘To-day my longing has at last been satisfied. I have shot Ross’ Gull—three specimens in one day. This rare and mysterious inhabitant of the unknown north, which is only occasionally seen, and of which no one knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth, which belongs exclusively to the world to which the imagination aspires, is what, from the first moment I saw these tracts, I had always hoped to discover, as my eyes roamed over the lonely plains of ice. And now it came when I was least thinking of it. I was out for a little walk on the ice by the ship, and as I was sitting down by a hummock my eyes wandered northwards and lit on a bird hovering over the great pressure-mound away to the north-west. At first I took it to be a Kittiwake, but soon discovered it rather resembled the * Dr. L. Stejnegar recently received a fully adult example of the Wedge-Tailed Gull, from Bering Island, where it was obtained on December toth, 1895.—H.A.M. THE WEDGE-TAILED GULL. 61 Skua by its swift flight, sharp wings and pointed tail. When I got my gun there were two of them together, flying round and round the ship. I now got a closer view of them and discovered that they were too light coloured to be Skuas. They were by no means shy, but continued flying about close to the ship. On going after them on the ice I soon shot one of them, and was not a little surprised, on picking it up, to find it was a little bird about the size of a Snipe; the mottled back, too, reminded me also of that bird. Soon after this I shot the other. Later in the day there came another which was also shot. On picking this up I found it was not quite dead, and it vomited up a couple of large shrimps, which it must have caught in some channel or other. All three were young birds, about twelve inches in length, with dark mottled grey plumage on the back and wings; the breast and under side white, with a scarcely perceptible tinge of orange-red, and round the neck a dark ring sprinkled with grey. At a somewhat later age this mottled plumage disappears; they then become blue on the back, with a black ring round the neck, while the breast assumes a delicate pink hue.’ ” “Tt is,’ adds Dr. Nansen, “without comparison, the most beautiful of all the animal forms of the frozen regions ..... Although it was too late in the year to find its nests, there could be no doubt about its breeding in this region.” This comparatively insignificant—considering the object of the expedition— and accidental discovery of the nesting place of Ross’ Gull, was by no means one of the least interesting and gratifying of the achievements of Dr. Nansen’s expedition. This bird was not observed by the explorers—Nansen and Johansen— between this point and the highest latitude reached by them; and on their return journey only when they approached the corresponding latitude, 82° $4’, in the longitude of about 63° E.—near the islands they named Hvitenland—did they again meet with it. The further south, toward Franz-Josef Land, they came, the more abundantly was it seen. It is rather surprising that it has not yet been recorded from Spitzbergen, to the south and west of which it has been often taken. The Wedge-tailed Gull—so named from the form of its tail, which is unique among the Zarine—has, when in full plumage, the back, shoulders and wings pale lavender-grey, the latter somewhat darker; external web of the outer primary black, almost to the tip; the inner primaries and the secondaries have white terminations, which form an alar bar when the wing is closed; a black ring encircles the neck, narrower in front than behind; the rest of the plumage white, suffused, during life, on the under surface with a rich warm flush of rose-red ; the wedge-shaped tail, rump and upper tail-coverts white, flushed with rose in life; the bill dark corneous, and feathered to the nostrils; the legs and feet bright scarlet. Length 12°5 inches; wing 108; tail 5; tarsus 13. 62 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. During winter the Gull loses the black neck-ring and much of its roseate hue. The nest, the eggs and the chicks of this bird are quite unknown. The birds obtained by Nansen, and described by him in the extract quoted above, were immature. A young bird has been described by Saunders in the XXV Volume of the ‘Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,” as being similar to the immature but with the crown distinctly pearl-grey, with sometimes a dark feather or two indicative of a hood, and also an approach to a greyish collar; more black about the orbits, and a strongly marked patch over the ears; more blackish on* the wing-coverts; rump barred with brown; tail feathers with blackish-brown tips to all except the outer pair. ‘‘ This dark band,” he continues, ‘‘decreases rapidly with advancing age in the feather, and by the following spring it is almost con- fined to the two central pairs of rectrices.” Gitke describes a specimen, shot on Heligoland, as having, in the fresh state, “the head, neck and all the lower parts, as well as the tail, tinged with a beautiful rosy red, this colour being particularly rich on the breast, and also penetrating the soft bluish-grey colour of the feathers of the back, especially on the shoulders, quite similar to what one sees in the same parts in old males of the Northern Bullfinch (Pyrrhula major) from the East.” Specimens of this Gull are not at all common in collections. The British Museum can show about half-a-dozen; there is one in the Leeds Museum; one in the Edinburgh University collection, and one in the Liverpool Museum. ‘The latter, which has been before us in drawing up the above description, and has been figured by Dresser in his ‘“‘ Birds of Europe,” was obtained in 69° 30’ N. latitude, at Alagnak, in Melville Peninsula, on June 23rd, 1823. The Edinburgh specimen was taken on the 27th of the same month and year, and in the same Peninsula. YaAWANG £p TIND SALYVdVNOG YALNIM BONAPARTE'S GULL. 63 family—LA RIDA. Subfamily—LARINA:. BONAPARTE’S GULL. Larus philadelphia, ORD. HIS beautiful little Gull is a strictly North American species, which has, probably by ‘“‘ circumstances over which it has no control,” been driven, rather than voyaged of its own will, to this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Eight or nine specimens have, however, been taken in the British Islands—the majority in the south or south-east of England; thrice it has been taken on the eastern coasts of Ireland, and once on Loch Lomond, in Scotland. Heligoland is the only other part of Europe in which it has been observed, ‘‘during the severe winter of 1845, the bird having been in winter plumage with beautiful red feet.” No example of the bird appears to have been recorded in this hemisphere since 1870. Bonaparte’s Gull inhabits and breeds in the Fur countries—the semi-arctic tegion of North America, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, its range reaching to the arctic circle. In autumn it migrates southward, and is found from mid-autumn through the winter in the Bermudas along the Atlantic sea board to the Gulf of Mexico, and as far as California on the Pacific side. It lets the spring be well over before it starts back to its bleak northern breeding grounds, where it spends no longer time than to perform this call of nature. Both sexes of this Gull are similar in size and plumage. In full summer garb they have the hood on the head dark greyish-black, with a white broken ring round the eyes; back and sides of the neck, throat, under wing-coverts, edge of wing, the primary coverts, the tail, and the entire under surface, pure white; mantle pale lavender-grey; ‘‘the first primary white, except on the outer web and across the tip, where it is black; the second is black only across the tip and for a little way up the margin of the inner web; the third and fourth with small white tips, broad black subterminal bars, and much pearl-grey above on the inner webs; the remaining primaries grey, with subterminal bars up to the seventh, where the bar is broken, while on the eighth there is merely a dark margin to the inner web” (Saunders); bill black; legs and feet red. Length 13 inches; wing 103; tail 4; tarsus 13; middle toe with its claw same as the tarsus. Bonaparte’s Gull mates by the end of May, and has begun to nest—in colonies . 64 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. —before the middle of June. ‘‘ One of the most peculiar and interesting facts,” writes Seebohm, “in the history of Bonaparte’s Gull is its singular manner of nesting. Though obviously so closely allied to the Little Gull and the Black- headed Gull, it seldom appears to make its nest on the ground in a swamp, but generally on tall trees and bushes up to twenty feet from the ground.” The nest is composed of sticks with a lining of dry moss and lichen; and in it are laid three dark olive-brown eggs, evenly spotted over with reddish- and greyish-brown spots, in size about 2 inches long by 13 in diameter. From them, in some three weeks time, there emerge fluffy balls of yellowish down, spotted with brown. When the young are fledged they don a dress much mottled and marked with brown on the back, and having the crown brownish-grey. As the birds become older the brown becomes somewhat lighter, but very marked on the wing-coverts and secondaries; tail with a subterminal band; brownish-black bands on the primaries; bill pale corneous. These markings continue for two or three years, becoming less and less, however, till, in its third and sometimes its fourth spring, the Gull attains its full plumage, aud is ready to begin to breed. Every winter, thereafter, the dark hood is lost and replaced by grey-mottled-white feathers, darkest over the ears. ““Go where we may in North America,’’ writes Coues, “this pretty bird may be seen at one or another season, if we are not too far from any inconsiderable body of water. The Gull holds its own from the Labrador crags, against which the waves of an angered ocean ceaselessly beat, to the low, sandy shores of the Gulf, caressed by the soothing billows of a tropical sea. It follows the sinuosities of the two coasts with wonderful pertinacity, making excursions up every bay and estuary, and threads the course of all our three great rivers, while performing its remarkably extensive migrations.” While in North Carolina, Dr. Coues observed these birds, in spring, on their northern migration. ‘‘ From the first of April to the twenty-second ........ great numbers were over the bay, with a decided preponderance of full plumaged individuals. Then without any marked change in the weather or other apparent cause, none were to be seen for a week or ten days. The first week in May, however, they became more numerous than ever, and what seemed singular, the last lot was entirely composed of young birds . Evidently the old birds, hurrying north to breed, led the van, and the young, with no such important business on hand, came trooping leisurely in the rear. The question was, what would these young birds do the ensuing summer? would they reach the boreal regions to which the great majority of the perfect fertile birds repair, after loitering so late on the Carolina coast? or did they only propose to go part way, spend the winter frolicking, and return with soberer intentions for another year? I doubt that any breed until they are full plumaged.” YyaWANS ict & “LAD “Ss REL] NWOALAY “ANF : SS: = z ay te RATT THE LITTLE GULL. 65 Family—LARID A, Subfamily—LARINA. THe Lirtce Gui: Larus minutus, PALL. HE Little Gull—which is the smallest of all the Gulls—is, notwithstanding T the goodly number of records of its occurrences from various parts of the country, a comparatively rare bird in the British Islands. Almost every year, however, one or two specimens reach our shores.* It was first recognized as a British species in 1813, by the astute ornithologist, whose nanie we have already more than once mentioned—Colonel Montagu, who described it in an appendix to the Supplement to his ‘‘ Ornithological Dictionary.” “This is another bird,” he writes, with much appareut satisfaction, ‘“‘ which has fallen to our lot to record in the British Fauna. It was shot on the Thames near Chielsea.” The Little Gull visits our shores only on passage to and from its breeding stations, which lie to our north and east, and appears, as a rule, in little flocks, generally on the eastern coasts, mainly of England, although it has been taken in Ireland on several occasions, and more rarely in Scotland. The bird is more common in Eastern Europe. Its breeding haunts are lakes and marshes across Northern Europe and Asia, between the arctic circle and the 55th parallel of north latitude; but it does not enter China. When the breeding season is over, the Little Gulls migrate for the winter south-westward (a course which brings them against our eastern coasts of Northumberland, Yorkshire and Norfolk, on their way still further south), and southward as far as the Mediterranean and the Caspian.t The male and female are alike in size and plumage. In their breeding dress, they have a deep black hood, sharply defined from the lower parts; the hind neck, the mantle (which has a flush of pearl-grey), the rump, upper tail- coverts and tail are pure white; the throat and entire under surface rich pinky- white; the back, scapulars, upper wing-coverts and wings delicate lavender-grey; * A remarkable influx of Little Gulls occurred on the East Coast, in February, 1870; at least sixty indi- viduals were killed in Norfolk in that mouth (cf “ Birds of Norfolk, vol. iii., p. 321).—H.A.M. t Tle majority of the Lite Gulls which are obtained on the British coasts prove to be in the plumage of the first winter; birds in nest dress are of rare occurrence on our shores. But we have handled specimens killed in Britain, in almost every month of the year, and their plumage varied according to the season.—H.A.M. Vox, VI. L 66 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. the “quills very broadly edged with white, and darkening to smoke colour towards the margins of their inner webs; under sides of the quills nearly black, except at the tips; under wing-coverts dark smoke-grey” (Saunders); bill dark red; legs and feet bright scarlet. Length 7% inches; wing 9; tail 3%; tarsus 15; middle toe with its claw 1%. One of the largest breeding places of this Gull is near Lake Ladoga, in Russia, where, frequently in association with the Common Tern, they nest in consider- able colonies in marshes, where there are many floating islands. The vegetation, partly decayed and partly still growing, forms excellent sites for the nests, which are often placed close together. The nests are composed, as well as lined, with dead vegetable fibres, and therein the bird deposits from two to four olive-brown or greyish-brown eggs, with chocolate or blackish-brown spots or blotches, varying in size from 1% to r? inches in length by 1? to 1 in diameter. These eggs are so like those of the Common Tern, with which they nest in the same colony, as to be “absolutely indistinguishable” from them; so that the only way to be quite certain that one has collected the eggs of the Little Gull is to take them from beneath the bird, or from a nest off which it has been seen to rise, and this may be more easily done with the present species than most others, for it is far less timid than the majority of Gulls. The eggs (which are incubated by both parents) are laid in June, and before the end of July they are mostly all hatched out. The young emerge covered with dark yellowish down, spotted above with dark brown. By the third week in August—the young being all on the wing—the whole colony will have started on its southern migratory journey. The plumage of this Gull undergoes nearly the same phases as the other species which assume a hood during the breeding season. In the full-fledged bird the head and back are dark brown, with white tips; later on as the bird grows older, the forehead, part of the cheeks, the throat, a line over the eye, the under side of the wings, the rump, the under surface (except for some brownish feathers on the breast) are seen to be white; the rest of the head is brown (the hind head and ear-coverts darker); the bill is blackish; the legs orange-red; the back and wings blackish, the coverts of the latter tipped with white or greyish-white; the primaries very dark brown, tipped with white; the tail white, but having a broad terminal band of black. The blackish feathers on the back gradually give place to grey and lavender grey; the tail band becomes less and less on the feathers from out inwards, and from the tip downwards; then partly by moult, partly by pigment changes in the feathers, the wings lose (much more gradually) their dark brown and become grey; the under side of the primaries change to greyish-black THE LITTLE GULL. 67 and the under wing-coverts to dark grey. ‘This dark under side to the wings—the sign of maturity—is attained in about their second autumn. It is not, however, till the third spring that, as a rule, the Little Gull puts on its first nuptial dress. Early in the year the pearly feathers of the neck become black. ‘This black colour,” according to Gatke, “first makes its appearance on the shaft of each feather, and then spreads in the form of a fine black dust over the remainder of its surface. In the feathers of the under side of the head, the fore-neck and sides of the neck, which in the winter are pure white, the alteration of colour commences at the external tips of the bands of each feather, the deep pure black colour appearing there in the form of fine specks, which at first form a fine black edge around the tip of the feather, and finally overspreads its whole surface. This alteration of colour, from perfectly pure white to deepest black, commences simul- taneously at the lower border of what is subsequently the black marking, and gradually extends upwards, so that in the end the part known as the chin is the only spot where the white colour is still apparent.” Then after breeding it changes into its first winter garb, in which the rich black hood is entirely lost, the head becoming white with a few patches of blackish-brown, especially marked on the ear-coverts; the breast shows a pinkish flush on the white; the bill, legs and feet are less brilliant. Both in their spring and in their autumn migration Little Gulls are to be seen in many parts of the continent in large flocks, such as Mr. Huddleston has described, as observed by him in the Dobrudscha, where they were frequenting a lake of fresh water. The flocks of Zarus minutus, which were associated with Sterna cantiaca, were “literally swarming in the air a few feet above the surface of the water, like Swallows over a river on a summer’s evening. Far as the eye could reach, looking northward down the lake, these elegant little birds were to be seen on the feed, dashing to and fro most actively ...... In the distance they looked like mosquitoes over the water, the flocks probably extending to the furthest end of the lake, which cannot be less than eight or ten miles off... . A few days later the thousands had become hundreds; yet a few days more and these will have dwindled down to tens; so that by the middle of May it is possible that not a pair will remain behind.” The habits and flight of the Little Gull are not unlike those of Terns; it frequents marshes and inland fresh waters, and hawks for insects—dragon-flies, May-flies, etc.—catching them on the wing. “All the Gulls,” writes Gitke, ‘leave their northern breeding stations before the approach of winter, to betake themselves to more temperate latitudes. In the case of none, however, does this movement so much partake of the nature of a 68 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs true migration as in that of the present species. Long-extending flights of these pretty little birds may be seen travelling over the sea past the island [Heligoland] at the close of September and during the first half of October. Their movements, however, are quite different from what one is accustomed to see in the case of most migrants. Companies of from one to two hundred individuals travel in motley throng quite low over the sea, continuously dropping to the surface to pick up food. All the time, however, they rigidly maintain their western course of flight and, speeding along with great rapidity, are very soon lost to sight. . . While roving over the sea in all directions in search of food, they execute many rapid beats with their wings, continuously displaying at the same time the peculiar greyish-black colour of their under sides.” Family—LARIDA. Subfamily—LARINA. Biack-HEADED GULL. Larus ridibundus, LINN. : HE Black-headed Gull is a true British species, breeding in all three islands, and many individuals spending the winter also on our coasts. It is found nesting throughout the whole of Europe, north to the Feeroes, and across all northern temperate Asia to Kamtchatka. In winter it migrates south to the Red Sea, to Northern Africa and down the west coast. It finds its way also to the Persian Gulf and to India, and even to the Philippine Islands, perhaps, by way of Eastern Asia. It is unknown on the western hemisphere. In the British Islands it is widely distributed, being found on the coasts and on inland lakes and marshes, which it specially affects. It forms large colonies, often called “Gulleries.’ The largest and most important in England are at Scoulton Mere, in Norfolk; Cockerham Moss, in Lancashire, and Walney Island, WAV A—'speay yoerlq-daap amd Suiaeq saroads 9011} []e ‘[[ND pepeay-yoerg yeoig ay} pue [Ny paepealy-Yoe[g UBsuestayipayw 94 ‘TIA avy ay} 0} Ajdde plnom papvoy-yoe[g ‘“UMorq-Ysike1s st peay aq} ‘peay aq} uo Youlq ow sey satoads sty} se IIMTOUSII B ST papRal|-yr7gT (YN) papa F-4Ivig) 29 TINO GaavaH-NMoYg THE BLACK-HEADED GULL. 69 off its coast. In Ireland it nests on the islands near Enniscoe and Errew; in Lough Conn and Lough Carra, Co. Mayo; in Killeenmore Bog, Tullamore, and in many of the less disturbed bogs in a score of counties. In Scotland it occurs in large colonies in many of the lochs on the mainland, in Orkney and Shetland also, and in the Western Isles. Scoulton Mere, in Norfolk, according to Mr. Seebohm, is about one hundred and fifty acres in extent, with an island in the centre covering some seventy acres, and on this ‘‘reservation” the Gulls breed. ‘‘’The colony,” he says, “consists of about eight thousand birds, and is said to be gradually increasing in size. Ten years ago [about 1875] it had dwindled down to less than half that number, in consequence of a succession of dry seasons and reckless shooting in the neighbour- hood; but forty years ago [1845] the colony was estimated at upwards of twenty thousand birds ..... Half of them stop at home to sit on the eggs, the male taking his turn when the female is feeding, and the other half are scattered over two or three hundred square miles of ground.” “Of all our Gulleries,” writes the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, in the “ Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland,” ‘no one is inferior in interest to that which occupies a few acres of water, half clothed with grass and bog-bean, at Moorthwaite, near Wigton. As recently as 1889, I considered this to be numerically the strongest Gullery in north-west England, a fact that is remarkable because it has no pedigree. It was only founded in 1878, by four pairs of birds. In 1879, thirty pairs of Gulls nested there. Ten years later I calculated that a thousand pairs bred there. Certainly it was an extraordinary sight to witness. Many hundreds could at any time be seen hovering in a white cloud over their nests. The surface of the tarns stretched out before us like a white sheet, so closely were the resting birds massed together; several hundreds formed a white patch on the dark surface of a neigh- bouring field; many more were constantly arriving with food for their young, gathered for miles round.” The Black-headed—or it would be more correct to call it the Brown-headed— Gull presents the same plumage in both sexes, but the female is in size generally though not invariably, somewhat smaller than the male. In breeding plumage both sexes have the head, as low as the nape and throat, where it is sharply circumscribed, hooded in chocolate brown, the lower margin of the hood almost black; a white ring surrounds the eye; the hind neck, round by the lower throat, the white of the under surface, the wing-margins, bastard wing and primary coverts (these flushed with grey), the rump, the upper tail-coverts and tail pure white—the under surface often presenting a rosaceous flush in the living bird; the mantle, the upper back, the wing-coverts, most delicate lavender-grey; outer Vor VI M jo BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGs. primaries mainly white, “with black tips, and black margins to the inner webs. Shafts of the three outer quills white; the outermost quill white, with a narrow black line along the greater part of the outer web (touching the shaft in all except very old birds), a black tip, and a blackish edge to the inner margin; second quill similar, but with merely a short hair line of black on the outer web; third quill with a trifle more black running upwards from the black tip along the outer web; fourth quill similar, but with a grey centre to the inner web; fifth quill white on both webs, and with a minute white tip; sixth similar, but the tip grey and broader, so that the black becomes a sub-terminal bar; seventh similar, but with less and fainter black; upper primaries grey; secondaries paler grey, without conspicuous margins” (Saunders); bill carmine; legs and feet deeper carmine; ring round the eye scarlet. Length 16 inches; wing riiv; tail 43; tarsus 13; middle toe and claw 1% inches. The Black-headed Gull breeds in many places in inland localities, often a great distance from the sea—in islands in lakes far removed from habitation, for it is a species easily disturbed and scared away from its breeding places. It does, nevertheless, breed in suitable sites near the sea. Very often it shares ‘‘the Grouse moors with the more legitimate tenants.” It is particularly fond “of a boggy island, almost inaccessible owing to deep mud and shallow water.” In March this Gull changes its winter dress for its nuptial plumage with the dark hood, and in the month of April it begins to lay, having constructed a well built nest of sticks, grass and reeds, or such vegetable material as the locality affords. The nest may be placed on the ground; in trees at varying heights from the ground; on the sloping roof of a boat shed; or ‘‘on a roundish-shaped boulder close to the shore”? (Harvie-Brown). When on the ground the nests are often placed so close together that it is impossible, without very great care and circumspection, to put the foot down without treading on a nest. Mr. Harvie- Brown and Sir John Orde have recorded that they have found a nest actually built in the water, in a small creek or bay, in the peat, on an island of Loch an Dune, a tidal arm of Loch Maddy. This species breeds often also in association with the Arctic Tern and Common Gull. The naturalists we have just mentioned have also found the eggs of the Black-headed and the Common Gull, in more than one locality, in the same nest. The eggs—in size, varying considerably with the age of the bird, about on an average 270 inches in length by 1% in diameter—are three to four in number, more generally three, and are extremely variable in colour. The ground colour varies from ‘‘pale bluish-green to greyish-buff and brown, spotted, blotched and streaked in almost every conceivable variety, with surface markings of dark brown, THE BLACK-HEADED GULL. 7 and with underlying markings of greyish-brown” (Seebohm); occasionally they may be of a reddish ochre ground colour, with pale rust-coloured blotches, while often, on the other hand, the various ground colours may be entirely unspotted, and the egg evenly covered as with a fine spray. During the period the eggs are being produced most profusely—about the middle of May—thousands are taken from the nests for the market, on account of the excellence of their flavour, which is considered almost as good as that of Plovers’, They are boiled hard and eaten cold, just as the latter are. From about twenty-three to twenty-four days after incubation has commenced, the young chicks appear, covered with a brownish-buff down above, yellowish-white beneath, and having the head, throat and back streaked with black or coffee-brown ; they are able to run about as soon as they are out of the egg; indeed they may sometimes be seen trotting off with their hinder regions encased in a buckler of shell. ‘It is curious to see the craftiness displayed by the young, not, indeed, by the very small ones, but by those which are growing strong. Although they can patter down the slopes of the sand-hills, or run across a shingled beach very fast indeed, they prefer to escape by hiding up. The very little chicks are content to rest quietly in their test). . a6. But those feathered hide up and remain so still that it is very difficult to avoid treading on them. The birds which are bred in the neighbourhood of water, and which swim strongly at an early age .. . rarely attempt to escape capture by swimming. If danger threatens they usually run in for shelter to the bank... But as the young begin to feather they skulk less and draw together in level places... . [and eventually] congregate together in parties of twenty and thirty birds until, their pinions growing strong, they leave the nursery on their own account ... .’’ (Macpherson). The full-fledged birds have the forehead white, top of head and nape greyish- brown, with a grey patch in front of the eye and over the ear-coverts; throat and under side white; breast and sides of body reddish-yellow; rump and upper tail- coverts white, with reddish-yellow edges; tail white, with black terminal band ; mantle and shoulders brown, with yellowish-brown edges, but grey at base; greater wing-coverts lavender-grey, speckled with brown; “ primaries as in the adult, with tiny white-brown tips, but with much more black on both webs, the black approaching the shaft; secondaries grey, broadly tipped with white, and with a longitudinal black mark towards the end of the outer web, decreasing in extent on the inner secondaries”? (Sharpe); bill yellow, black at the angle; legs and feet reddish. This plumage has, by December, become modified by the exchange of the brown for a grey mantle; and before it is a year old “more or less of a brown hood is assumed” (Saunders); while at the moult in the following autumn the 72 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Ecas. dark band on the tail vanishes. In the second spring the bird is preparing to mate, and puts on its nuptial dress; but for some years the brown on the primaries may still be visible, indeed it may be four or five years before they attain the full whiteness of the outer primaries, which characterizes the adult. The brown hood of the breeding bird appears, according to Saunders, as a dark line gradually running ‘‘ from each ear-patch across the head; later a similar and parallel line grows up from the eyes, so that the head appears to have two narrow bands of dusky grey; then the dark feathers increase between, and lastly they come as in front, till the base of the bill is reached.’”’ Saunders and others state that the hood appears by a pigment change in the feathers and not by their being truly moulted. This is denied by Mr. Tait, who observed birds in Portugal in all stages of changing, from the white to the black feathers, and found new ones to be springing up already black in their sheaths among the white feathers. It is probable that both observers are correct; for it may be that in young birds, which are assuming their hood for the first time, the dark feathers may come in new; but in older birds the hood may be assumed by a pigment change in the feathers only. It is to be remarked, however, that, in other birds, where the main change is one of pigment, there do come in, as the present writer has observed, a few by true moult as well. After the birds have reared their brood, there then commences the true moult of the year, the result of which is the Gull’s winter dress, in which the dark hood has entirely disappeared, leaving the head white, except for a grey patch on the ear-coverts and one in front of the eye; while the rosy tint of the breast is much fainter. On the completion of their parental duties, the Black-headed Gulls leave their breeding places and move towards the coast, accompanied by the young birds. Later in the season many of them migrate further south, large numbers, however, spend the winter with us, however severe it may be. The present writers will not soon forget the interesting sight which they were fortunate to witness during the severe frost of February and March, 1895, when Black-headed Gulls, young aud old, were in thousands on the Thames, between the London bridges; now flying in circles, with noisy cries, on the look out for food thrown to them, or resting on the blocks of floating ice which were being carried down by the tide. “This unusual sight was viewed,” as recorded in the “Field” of that date, “ by crowds of people, who forgot the cold in the fascination of watching these birds, among which numbers of Terns, Kittiwakes, and Herring Gulls were associated. Not only on the Thames but on the ponds in the various parks, where the water was kept open purposely to allow the water-fowl there domesticated to feed, all these birds congregated to the great delight of thousands of Londoners, to many THE MEDITERRANEAN BLACK-HEADED GULL. 73 of whom these sea-birds were anything but familiar, and in many cases quite unknown.” The Black-headed Gull in summer feeds on insects, and especially moths, which it hawks on the wing. But it will pretty well eat anything, newly sown oats, flesh, fish, crustacea, and especially grubs and worms, which they follow the plough or the harrow in spring, often as many as a hundred in a flock, frequently in company with Rooks, to pick up as these are turned out by the husbandman’s operations. On such occasions they exhibit very little fear, and will follow close on the ploughman’s heels. The Black-headed Gull can be distinguished in winter while on the wing— where Gulls are very difficult to determine—by its red legs, its mottled shoulders, the dark spot on the side of its head, and the broad bar across the extremity of its square tail. It can be distinguished also from the Little Gull—which it resembles—by its larger size and greater length. The darker bill of the Little Gull and the darker under side to its wings serve also as differentiation characters. Family—LARIDE. Subfamily—-LARINA. MEDITERRANEAN BLACK-HEADED GULL. Larus melanocephalus, NATTERER. HE Mediterranean Black-headed Gull has a place in the British list from the fact that an adult example, in winter plumage, was shot on Breydon Broad, in December, 1886. The British Museum had previously purchased a specimen said to have been shot, in January 1866, in Barking Creek, on the Thames. Its habitat is the shores of both sides of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Atlantic shores of South-Western Europe, very rarely higher than 45° N. latitude. 74 BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. It may be recognized from Z. ridibundus, if chance should again bring a specimen to our shores, by its harsher Tern-like cry, and by its having the hood really black instead of blackish-brown; the primaries are white tipped, only the first has the narrow outer web black; bill, legs and feet red. Length 143 to 15 inches. It breeds in large numbers in the marisma of the Guadalquivir, west of Jerez. Mr. A. B. Brooke, in his notes on the ornithology of Sardinia, notes that by the 15th of March a great number of these Gulls had already assumed their black head [which is of course lost during winter], and the tips of their primaries were pure white; after that date, along the coast of Genoa and Leghorn, where they are extremely numerous, few are to be seen in their winter dress. “On one occasion,” he says, ‘“‘I saw a pair commit an atrocious piece of cruelty on an unfortunate small bird (a Wagtail, I think, by its flight), which was vainly trying to overtake the steamer, evidently nearly exhausted, having only sufficient strength left to clear the waves. It was at once seen by a pair of these Gulls that were hovering hungrily round the stern, and they immediately gave chase. After one or two unsuccessful swoops, pluckily and skilfully evaded by the Wagtail, one of the Gulls knocked it into the sea, lighting beside it, got up, and flew away with it in his bill; but he did not go far before he dropped it, and the poor exhausted little bird made a dying attempt to reach the steamer, his only refuge; but it was of no use, as he was almost immediately caught again and killed. I dare say this is by no means an uncommon fate of many of our smaller summer migrants.” THE GREAT BLACK-HEADED GULL. 75 Family—LARID/E. Subfamily—LARINA. THe GREAT BLACK-HEADED GULL. Larus ichthyaétus, PAu. HIS Royal Sea-Gull, as Canon Tristram calls the present magnificent species of the hooded Gulls, has a similar claim to a place among the birds of England to the last species. A fine adult bird was shot near Exmouth, in June, 1859, in full summer plumage. Its breeding region is Southern Russia and Central Asia; while in winter it visits the Mediterranean, Northern Egypt, Palestine and India. Canon ‘Tristram records that during winter and spring Gulls were very abundant on the Sea of Galilee. ‘‘ From morning to night,” he says, ‘they pass and repass up and down its short length—the magnificent ZLavus ichthyaétus in particular making the circuit of the lake close to the edge and always within shot, as though to keep himself in exercise. We got this Royal Sea-Gull in the finest possible plumage in the month of March. Where they go to breed I cannot say; they certainly do not breed in Palestine; probably they take an easy flight to the Red Sea and enjoy their spring among its coral reefs.” According to Pallas they probably breed on the Caspian Sea. This species has in summer a splendid black hood, relieved by a white spot above and below the eye; the whole throat, under side, tail and lower neck pure white; the back, the mantle, the wing-coverts dark lavender grey; the primaries white, with a deep black sub-terminal bar, save the first, which is all black except the tip; bill orange from base to the tip, with a black bar across both mandibles near the tip; legs and feet are rich yellow, with a greenish tinge. Little is known of the habits of this bird—which is the largest of the hooded species, and by this character easily distinguished from all others. It is also the only one “which has unspotted young” (Saunders). 76 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. Family—LARID/E. Subfamily—LARINA:. ComMMon GULL. Larus canus, LINN. HE Common Gull is to be found on all our coasts during the autumn and winter; but not alone on the coasts, for it is to be seen often far inland, quite fifty miles from the sea. During the summer no nesting birds are to be met with south of the Scottish border; for its breeding places are confined to Scotland and Ireland, although, according to Seebohm, it once bred—and it may do so again—on the Lancashire coast. In the former country it occupies suitable places from the Solway to the Shetland Isles, and from Aberdeenshire to the Outer Hebrides. In Ireland it is to be seen all round the coast at every season, except during the breeding time, when it is much rarer, as the majority of them go inland to nest. The distribution of the Common Gull beyond our boundaries extends across Europe and Asia, north of the 5oth parallel of north latitude; ‘on the Pacific side from Kamtschatka to Japan and China” (Saunders). In the winter months it migrates southward as far as the Mediterranean shores, the Persian Gulf and into North Africa; some individuals, however, invariably remain throughout the winter in localities near their breeding stations. It does not occur on the western hemisphere, where its place is taken by a nearly allied species; but one young specimen of Larus canus has, it is recorded, been taken in Labrador, whither it may have got driven from Iceland where the species occurs sparingly. The Common Gull varies very much in size throughout its range; as a rule, however, the female is slightly smaller than the male; but the seasonal plumages of both sexes are alike. During the breeding season the head, the neck, the upper tail-coverts, the tail and the whole under surface, including the under wing-coverts aud axillaries, are pure white; the eye is set off by a scarlet ring; the mantle, the back, and the general colour of the wings, is delicate French-grey; the outer- most primary black, grey at the base, with a white sub-terminal bar; the next similar, but the bar smaller; the third also black, with a still smaller bar—or rather spot—the bases of all three increasingly grey; on the remaining primaries YaNANS £6 T1IND NOWNOD JUNLYNW] eS BE SWWVKe THE COMMON GULL. 77 to the sixth the basal grey colour increases, and is broken by a black bar and a white tip; “the seventh quill grey, with a white tip, and with a dark spot on the outer web in all but very mature birds; the remaining quills white terminally and grey basally” (Saunders); the bill, legs and feet greenish-yellow. The average dimensions of a British species—specimens from the Pacific coast of Asia are considerably larger—length 173 inches; wing 144; tail, which falls short of the wings by 2 inches, 6; tarsus 2; middle toe and its claw 1% inches. The Common Gull is an early breeder. Early in April they have migrated northwards from their winter quarters and sought out their breeding places. They have mated and begun to build before the month is well out, and by the middle of May eggs may be obtained. The breeding ground may be in all sorts of sites; it may be on the sea coast; on an island near the coast; on an isolated and unfrequented islet far from the mainland; or it may be on an inland fresh water loch. The nest may be placed in these sites high or low—on the shore at the sea level; in marshes as elevated as four thousand feet above the sea; or on a cliff, though rarely high upon it; on the turf on a slope facing the sea. Their nests are often very large, and composed of grass, turf, heather, sea weed, or any sort of vegetable refuse they find handy, and are placed a few together in Shetland, sometimes in company with other Gulls—as the Herring Gull, and with the Arctic Tern—or in vast colonies. The nest is most often found, according to Seebohm, ‘“‘especially where the colonies are large, in flat open country; ... and in Norway Collett has known it to breed in the deserted nest of a Hooded Crow, near the top of a pine, not far from a lake. The Common Gull occasionally perches in lofty trees, generally choosing the summit or a dead branch. In the valley of the Yenisei I shot one of these birds after having watched it for some time perched on a branch of a larch.” From two to three eggs are generally laid, very variable in ground colour, from olive- to yellow-brown; and from lighter to deeper shades of green; covered with dots and spots of dark brown, black and purplish-grey. In dimensions they average about 2% inches in length by 1% in diameter. The nestlings make their appearance in June, covered with a light grey down, streaked and spotted above with brown and black, “‘with a black spot at the base of the bill, apparently characteristic of this species’ (Saunders); under side yellowish-grey, rarely spotted. If the nest be on a tree, a cliff, or a place from which they cannot run, the chicks remain in the nest till fledged. If the nest be on the flat they leave almost at once. They are fed by the parents on crustacea (LZyale nilssont in Norway), insect larvee and small fishes. The fully fledged bird has the forehead white; and the region from in front Vo. VI. N 78 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGcs of the eyes, over the crown to the upper back, down the cheeks and along the sides of the chest to the flanks, with the upper and under tail-coverts, 1s spotted and streaked with brown; the throat and under side white; the tail white, except for a broad sub-terminal bar of brownish-black; the mantle brownish-grey, variegated and margined with brownish-white; primaries chiefly sooty brown, with paler inner webs; secondaries brown, with grey bases; bill flesh colour, black anteriorly. By the time the bird is three or four months old, the brown feathers in the back scapulars and wing-coverts have begun to be replaced by the French-grey of the adult. In the coming spring when the Gull moults, or partially moults, probably for the first time, many of the brown feathers in the head and neck, the rump, and upper tail-coverts are exchanged for white, but some streaked ones still remain ; more grey appears on the back and wing-coverts, and most of the inner primaries have become grey; bill more flesh-coloured, and the legs and feet yellowish. After the moult in their second autumn—when over two years old—the birds approximate the winter garb of the adult, in having some brown streaks on the neck; but the sides of the breast, the upper wing-coverts, the under wing-coverts, axillaries and under tail-coverts still retain traces of brown; the tail-bar is much narrowed, being more reduced on the external than on the central feathers; bill and legs greener; the outer primaries want, however, the white sub-terminal spot. Their next moult, when they put on their nuptial dress, at the age of thirty-three to thirty-four months, sees all the brown gone and the primary markings of the adult attained. After rearing their brood, the young parents assume their first adult winter plumage, which is a resumption of the greyish-brown streaks and spottings on the head and neck; while the legs and feet become paler. The Common Gull feeds on anything almost that presents itself: fishes— especially young herrings and sand-eels, which it captures on the wing by dropping down on them without plunging beneath the surface—and crustacea of all sorts; among the jetsam likewise of the sea-shore after a storm, they find a feast in the sea-urchins, dead fishes, and even the carcases of drowned animals thrown on the beach. During winter and spring they roam far inland in large flocks, mainly composed of immature birds, and may be seen feeding by the side of rivers and meres, or following the plough, doing the farmer a good turn by industriously gathering the worms and grubs as they are turned up. ‘These flocks,” as Macgillivray writes, ‘‘may be met with here and there at long intervals in all the agricultural districts, not only in the neighbourhood of the sea, but in parts most remote from it. Although they are more numerous in stormy weather, it is not the tempest alone that induces them to advance inland; THE COMMON GULL. 79 for in the finest days of winter and spring they attend upon the plough, or search the grass fields as assiduously as at any other time. Frequently they have no companions of other species, but often they mingle with Tarrocks [Black-headed Gulls], and sometimes with Herring Gulls. Should the country become covered with snow they retreat to the shores; but when the thaws have partially exposed the ground they return. At this season they almost entirely desert the more northern sterile parts of Scotland, advance southward, and are dispersed over the whole country.” It is occasionally also to be seen in the farmer’s newly sown corn fields, taking its reward for its vermin-killing by a moderate toll of grain... The presence of this, and other species of Gulls, at a distance from the sea, is supposed to betoken rough weather coming, or a storm passing not far off the shore, scariug them inland for shelter. The old rhyme runs :— “Sea-gull, Sea-gull Sit on the sand, It’s never fair weather When you come to land.” Wind and stormy weather are supposed also to be portended when Gulls fly high and circle like Rooks—they are ‘seeking for wind.” During the winter and autumn they congregate in great flocks on the coast, also when disturbed they utter a harsh cry, which is a note of alarm not only to their own kind but to other species of birds that are within hearing. They are good tempered among themselves and have no piratical habits, but live at peace with their neighbours. The Common Gull is less timid than many of the larger Gulls; it repays kindness or attention by confidence even in its wild state, and in captivity it becomes very tame. Mr. Thompson states that one was induced to follow a steamer from Liverpool to the Isle of Man, by bread thrown out at intervals to it, which it invariably caught on the wing. The following interesting account of this bird breeding in captivity is from “The Field” of July 8th, 1893. ‘‘In the autumn of 1891, a male bird was trapped and placed in the back yard [of a fish-curer, in Peterhead, Scotland]. Next spring a female Gull made its appearance, a nest was made in a corner, two eggs laid and one young one hatched, which is now nearly as big as the parents, and remains with them in the old quarters. Towards the winter the female disappeared, but returned this spring, and the two again made a nest in the old place. Three eggs were laid and three Gulls hatched in twenty-eight days, each bird taking a turn of sitting three hours at a time, day and night. The male bird got so tame that it runs about among the workmen, but the female still shows the character- 80 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EaGs. istics of its wild nature. In the presence of the workmen it pursues its rearing duties; but at the approach of a stranger it at once rises, sweeps through the air, and makes a dart at the intruder’s head. The yard-dog is unmolested, but strange dogs or cats are at once put to flight by the female.” family—LARIDA:. Subfamily—LARINE. HERRING GULL. Larus argentatus, GMEL. HE Herring Gull—so named from its being supposed to guide the fishermen to the shoals of herrings approaching the coast, although it is not more given to their pursuit than other species of Gull—belongs to the larger Gulls, and is one of the commonest of our shore birds, and might, with more appropriateness, have been called the Common” Gull than the bird we last described. It is like most Laring a gregarious species, and though more numerous at some places than others, there is hardly any district in the three kingdoms where it is not to be secn at some period of the year. Asarule it selects rocky islands and coasts for its breeding stations. In England it abounds—to mention a few only of the larger colonies known to us—on Lundy Island; on the rocks of Holyhead; on the beetling cliffs of Spanish Head, in the Isle of Man; Foulshaw Moss, in More- cambe Bay, and Flamborough Head. In Ireland it is met with on all the rocky headlands and islands off its coast—the Giant’s Causeway headlands, Horn Head, the Gobbins, at the entrance to Belfast Bay, and the island of Lambay, off the Dublin coast. In Scotland the Herring Gull occurs abundantly on all the Western Isles, the Orkney and Shetland Archipelago, and along the eastern coast. ‘ The whole circumference of Rum, seems to have become one vast colony of Gulls; THE HERRING GULL. 81 re perhaps no island on the coast now contains as many Herring Gulls as Rum does.” Ailsa Craig, the Bass Rock, St. Abb’s Head, and the Buller’s of Buchan are other notable places. It is never safe, however, to count on finding the same sized colony at the same place many years in succession, Gulls resembling Terns in being fickle as to their nurseries, and leaving or returning to them for no perceptible reason. The breeding range of the Herring Gull extends across the whole of Northern Europe, as far east as the 4oth meridian, and along all its coasts down to the goth parallel of N. latitude. It is found breeding as far north as 78°, along all the indented coast line of the western hemisphere, and inland on the great lakes south to the same parallel as on the European side, but on the Pacific coast it ranges somewhat lower. In winter it migrates to the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Caspian, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, and to the 2oth parallel on the western. Although during autumn and winter this species extends its range southward, large numbers reside throughout the year within its breeding limits, except, perhaps, in its most northern portions. Individuals from different parts of its wide range vary very greatly in size; but the females are, as a rule, of smaller dimensions than the males of their own locality or colony. The plumage of both sexes is alike at their corresponding seasons and ages. In breeding attire fully adult birds have the head, the neck, upper back, sides of head, entire under surface, upper tail-coverts and tail pure white; the back, scapulars and wing-coverts delicate, rather darkish, lavender- grey; scapulars and secondaries broadly tipped with white, showing prominently as a bar across the wings; all the primaries have tips of white, of larger or smaller extent. The markings of the quills are so intricate that we follow Mr. Saunder’s authoritative account of them: the first primary which is almost entirely black, except for a narrow grey wedge-shaped spot on the inner web, has a narrow sub-terminal black bar, which in most old birds divides “‘the white into tip and ‘ mirror.’ ” With increasing age of the bird, the ‘‘ white mirror absorbs the black bar till the latter disappears, leaving the primary pure white from the tip to more than two inches upwards; whilst from above a grey ‘wedge’ along the inner web gradually eats into the black portion, reducing the width of the black along the inner web to only two inches; the second blackish on both sides of the shaft, with a bar the same as in the first; a white ‘mirror’—absent in birds not fully mature—and a grey wedge, which sometimes breaks through and joins the mirror; the third is grey at the base, blackish on the lower part of the outer web and on the sub- terminal bar, grey on the inner web, passing into white at the apex of the wedge; Vox. VI (0) b2 BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND Ecos. fourth and fifth the same, the former greyer on both webs; the sixth has no bar; the rest grey, with white tips; the encroachment of the light portions upon the dark ones increases with the age of the bird; the grey wedge on the primaries ‘is an important distinction between some closely allied species’”; bill rich yellow, with a carmine spot at the angle of the lower mandible; ring round eyes yellow; legs and fcet flesh-coloured. Length 23% inches; wing 17; tail 7; tarsus 22; middle toe with its claw 23. The Herring Gull betakes itself, in large colonies at the middle of April, to its breeding quarters, and having already assumed its nuptial dress (just described) it mates and sets about nest building with much.fuss and noise. The nest of the Herring Gull—often found in the same colony with those of the Lesser and Great Black-backed Gulls—is built, in some localities, mainly on ledges of perpendicular and almost inaccessible cliffs, and rarely on the flat table-lands; in others, as in Uist, where “the islet being uneven and covered with Luzula sylvatica, the nests were more diversified than is usually found in flat, grassy islands: nests were perched here and there on ups and downs, and some were composed of heather, some of bracken, and others of Zuzula.” A tree is not an unknown site for this bird to choose for a nursery. If there be turf on the top of large stacks of inaccesible rocks, they will probably prefer that to the ledges of the cliffs, and viewed from a distance, as they sit on their nests, ‘‘they look like large flowers among the grass” (Grey). The nest is often very large—though some individuals make only a slightly lined hollow serve their purpose—built of grass, occasionally sticks, or any vegetable material which they can find conveniently in their chosen locality. The Herring Gull lays from two to three eggs—in length from 23 to 3 inches, by 13 to 2 inches in diameter—very variable in markings and in coloration. Mr. Dresser says that they vary from a moderately light stone to a dark brown, of a somewhat yellowish, hue; but the average egg is of a moderately dark stone colour. They are blotched with very dark brown, the blotches being medium sized, rarely large, and as a rule uniformly distributed over the surface of the egg; mingled with the blotches are a few spots. Occasionally they are suffused and blotched with salmon-pink, or reddish-buff. Mr. Henry J. Pearson, whose visits to the northern shores of Europe for the purpose of investigating the breeding haunts and habits of these birds, writes in a letter to the “Ibis”? for October, 1896 :—‘“‘It has been a doubtful point for some time among British ornithologists, which of the Gull-tribe lays the beautiful eggs suffused with salmon-pink, or reddish-buff, now to be seen in many of our collections ..... During a short visit this year to some of the islands on the north of Norway, I THE HERRING GULL. 83 had the pleasure: of observing a Gull on one of these red eggs. Before my arrival two red eggs had been taken from a nest shown to me, and another nest had been made by the same pair of Gulls a few yards off, in which was a splendid specimen. I lay down behind some rocks about sixty yards away, and after waiting twenty minutes a Herring Gull (Zarus argentatus) walked quietly up to the nest and settled. I watched her through my glasses for some time, and am as sure of her identity as if I had shot and handled her..... To show how scarce the red eggs are, I may say I went to a large group of islands (ten miles from that first mentioned) where an enormous number of Gulls breed. At the time of my visit 7320 eggs had already been sent to market, and the season was not nearly over. Half of these I estimated to be from Z. argentatus, yet no red egg had ever been taken on this group of islands. There is an even larger colony of L. argentatus at the north end of Fuglé, a well known bird rock, but the Lapps living there say they never find any red eggs.” The eggs being of excellent flavour are sent to the market in enormous numbers; and, indeed, in our Western Isles, they are trusted to by the fishermen as a very material part of their support during the fishing season. The chicks issue from the egg as down-covered squabs, of a greyish-buff or yellowish-white colour, variousiy mottled with black on the head, back and chest —darker on the head and lighter on the under side. The changes of plumage they assume between the fledgling and the adult stages, when they are ready to breed, that is when the birds are about five years old, are very complicated, and may be quoted from Mr. Saunder’s British Museum Catalogue, as no one else can speak so authoritatively on the subject :— “In the first autumn the upper parts are streaked and mottled with brown and greyish-buff; quills dark umber, with paler inner webs and whitish tips to most; rectrices similar, but more or less mottled with whitish at the bases of the two or three outer pairs; feathers of the upper tail-coverts brown, with whitish- buff tips; under parts nearly uniform brown at first, but afterwards brownish-grey, mottled; bill blackish, paler at base of lower mandible. “The second autumn the head is nearly white, streaked with greyish-brown; the upper parts are barred with brown on a greyish ground, though no pure grey feathers have yet made their appearance on the mantle; quills paler; tail more mottled with white at the bases of all the feathers. “In the third autumn the feathers of the mantle are chiefly grey, with some brownish streaks down the shafts; a faint sub-apical spot begins to show on the outermost primary; tail coverts partly white, and the dark portion of the rectrices is much broken up; under parts nearly white. 84 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs “In the fourth autumn the sub-apical patch on the first primary is larger, and the quills, from the sth upwards, are banded with black and tipped with white; tail feathers white, slightly vermiculated with brown; bill greenish yellow basally, reddish-black at the angle. . “At the moult of the fifth autumn, all brown markings are lost the primaries have white tips, black bars and grey ‘wedges,’ though the proportion of dark colouring in the quills is greater than it is in older birds.” The food of the Herring Gull consists mainly of shore offal, crustacea, and young herrings, the shoals of which they follow in large crowds, dropping down upon the fry and picking them up on the wing, or sometimes when swimming in the midst of them. Their manceuvres during such an occasion are denominated “Play of Gulls,” and to see them hurrying up from all parts, from their nests or resting places, on the shrill call of the scouts that denotes discovery, is a most interesting sight to witness. Mussels and other shell-fish also form a part of their diet, sometimes bolted whole, but often the contents alone eaten after the shell has been broken by dropping it on a rock. The Herring Gull is very confiding. One of the present writers when on a dredging expedition off the Isle of Man from the Marine Biological Station at Port Erin, during a short interval devoted to lunch, when the vessel was hove-to, was charmed by the tameness of these Gulls, a crowd of which soon collected round. The scraps we threw to them were nimbly picked up, at first with some diffidence, with rather a hurried grab from the surface of the sea, without the birds touching the water with more than the tips of their extended limbs; ina few minutes, however, perceiving our good-will, they came quite close under the stern of our small steamer and fed without fear sometimes, indeed, seizing the morsels thrown them before they reached the water, and often before they were well clear of the ship’s rail. Half-fledged Gulls are easily reared and domesticated, becoming so attached to the place and people, where they have been brought up and kindly treated as to remain there all their lives, without being pinioned and with no other tie than that of affection. The late Mr. Bartlett has placed on record (Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1859) an interesting note on a Herring Gull, born in the Gardens in 1857 (of parents also born in the year 1850 in the Gardens), where it remained all the summer and autumn. ‘“‘At the commencement of the winter he was in the habit of flying about (not pinioned), and occasionally staying away a day or ¢wo, then for a week or more, returning again generally about feeding time, and alighting among the other Gulls, and feeding with them. This continued till the end of March, 1858, at which time he disappeared. Nothing more was seen or heard of Yyassay] Ep TINO Gawyovg-Novl1g, W] T aYNLYW PS cosas SESE NG ea THE LeEssER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 85 him till the middle of November 1858, when, to the delight and astonishment of all who knew him, he returned one afternoon at the usual time, meeting the keeper with the box of food, he followed him to the enclosure where he was hatched, and settling down amongst the other Gulls, took his dinner as though he had never been away, not appearing the least shy or wild.” Family—LARID/ZE. Subfamily—LARINAE. LesseR BLack-BACKED GULL. Larus fuscus, LINN. HE Lesser Black-backed Gull is a British resident all the year round, and nests much more widely within our area than the Herring Gull. In England the following breeding localities may be mentioned :—coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire; Lundy Island; the Welsh coast; on Teifi Bog, in mid-Wales; the Isle of Man; Walney Island; the Farne Islands—of which “ the whole group may be regarded as a huge colony of Lesser Black-backed Gulls” (Seebohm); and also on mosses in Cumberland and Westmoreland. In Scotland it is rather less common than the Herring Gull, in close prox- imity to which it often rears its brood. It has nurseries in the Shetland Isles; North Ronaldsay holds the largest colony of the Orkneys; on Dunbar’s Stack, near Wick, a colony finds a hospitable summit; little flocks nest on many of the islets of the Hebrides, but less numerously than the Herring Gull; they breed in larger numbers on the west coast than on the east, as undisturbed sites are much more frequent on the wilder archipelagoes of the former, than on the less bold and more cultivated coasts of the latter. In Ireland this species is also less numerous than the Herring Gull; but it resides at various places round the island—more sparingly on the northern coast 86 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS —and breeds in many of the rockier districts, and on the inland lakes. The largest colony known to Thompson was, and is still, we learn, on Rams Island, in Lough Neagh, ‘where, from the people believing that it subsists on the Coregonus pollan, it is called the Pollan Gull, or Lough Neagh Herring Gull, from the names applied to this fish”; Lough Conn, in Co. Mayo, is another of its breeding haunts. The Lesser Black-backed Gull does not range east of the 5oth meridian, but it is found breeding over all Europe west of that line (Iceland excepted), and as far south as the Mediterranean. In winter it migrates from its most northerly nesting haunts; but is found resident in increasing numbers the further south of about the 35th parallel one goes; while large flocks find their way to North Africa and the Persian Gulf, and on the west reach to and beyond the Western Isles as far down the coast of the African mainland as the Gulf of Guinea. It is unknown on the western hemisphere. The sexes of this species agree in plumage; but in size the female is rather less than the male, and has a somewhat weaker bill. In its summer or nuptial dress, the Lesser Black-backed Gull is everywhere pure white, except on the back and wings, which are in general colour black— which varies through many shades from pale to deep black; the longest scapulars and the secondaries have white tips which form a very prominent alar bar; quills are nearly black, the first two have a white mirror and bluish-grey bases, on the third the grey becomes a “ wedge,” and increases on the succeeding feathers till the black left is only a subterminal bar, which has gradually vanished by the seventh leaving the rest of the quills slate-grey, tipped with white; eye encircled by ascarlet ring; bill yellow, its angle red; legs and feet paler yellow than the bill. Total length 21 inches; wing 16%; tail 6%; tarsus 2?; middle toe with its claw 2¢. This species mates early in the spring of its fifth year. Harting, who visited this bird’s breeding stronghold, did not observe there a single indi- vidual in the mottled plumage peculiar to the immature bird, and believes that none do breed until the full adult plumage is attained. In May the Lesser Black-backed Gulls select their nesting place, betaking them- selves, as Macgillivray states, ‘‘to unfrequented islands, headlands, and sometimes inland lakes [and mosses], often in considerable numbers, and there remain until their young are able to fly, although they make extensive excursions around in search of food.” On the Teifi Bog, in mid-Wales, about twelve miles from the sea, the nests are placed ‘‘on slight hillocks, generally in deep heather, the vicinity, with trampled grass and scattered feathers, being suggestive of a goose green”’ (Salter). THE LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 87 ‘In Hoy [in the Orkneys] any one,” writes Mr. Moodie-Heddle to Harvie-Brown, “can create a breeding place of the Lesser Black-backed Gull by burning a large tract late in the season; the Gulls then come on the bare ground (through the following summer and autumn) to catch moths and winged insects, which have no heather left to go down into. They then usually begin to breed on the tufts of white moss left unburnt the following season. The breeding places by the water of Hoy and down to Pegal Burn, were thus formed by accidental fires. No Gulls bred there for many years before, and we could kill sixty or seventy brace more Grouse.” In Iona, Mr. Graham notes that this Gull made its nest on the flat marshy summits of all the lesser islands. The nest is sometimes on the bare rock; but more often on a grassy slope if such exist near. The most remarkable situation for a nest, perhaps, is that cited by Dr. Sharpe, which was placed in the middle of a sheep track, and the sheep, in passing to and fro, had to jump over the back of the sitting bird! This nest (with its four eggs) is now in the British Museum. This species breeds in colonies, which in some places are very large, when their nests are placed so close to each other, that it is by no means easy to traverse their nursery without treading upon either the eggs or young. The nest, if on the ground, is little more than a scraped out hollow in the ground, lined with grass, sea-weed, or herbage of any kind within reach; if on a rock a larger pile of the same substances, is built up in the selected niche or ledge. It is not at all uncommon to find the Herring Gull nesting in close proximity to it, only, however, in the more inaccessible ledges or summits. Three eggs are laid as a rule—four occasionally, sometimes only two—which vary very greatly in size, shape and colour. Many of them are hardly, if ever certainly, to be distinguished from those of the Herring Gull. They vary in size from 2$ to 3 inches in length, by 1% to 2 in diameter. Ground colour from very pale grey, through olive-brown to greenish-blue or chocolate-brown, spotted and blotched, often more abundantly at the greater end, with black or dark brown. From the end of May, through June and into July, eggs and chicks of all stages and ages may be found. After about three weeks incubation the chicks break through their prison, as lively and nimble balls of down, greyish-buff above, with the head, neck and back spotted with brown; the under side paler and unspotted. On the least intrusion on their cubicle they are ready to be off—running, as Mr. Battye remarks, head down and shoulders up like a Falcon—to the nearest herbage or water for security; but if left undisturbed they may be found for a fortnight or more in the nest, most assiduously tended by the parents. The approach of any intruder when the helpless young are in the nests, is the signal to set the whole of the 88 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EccGs. colony on wing, wheeling round his head, swooping down upon and screaming at him. When fledged, the bill, legs and feet are livid corneous; the feathers, which are white in the adult, have a centre streak, or a bar of ashy-brown, and pale edges; and where black they are reddish-brown, with yellowish-white edges; the wing feathers are sooty or black, and the tail is mottled with brown which, near the end, becomes almost a continuous bar, the tips of the feathers being greyish- white; the bill is horn colour, and the legs and feet brownish-white. During its first autumn the bird undergoes no true moult, but the brown becomes less marked in some parts, by loss of pigment, and more uniform, through the wearing off of the pale tips. In the next spring there is a more general, but slow, moult, in which the brown comes in of a less deep shade, and during the second autumn its colour becomes a little paler still. During the next year, in spring and autumn by feather-chauges, and loss of pigment in them, the brown is still further lost; bill yellow at its base, but without the red spot on the angle of the mandible. In the fourth autumn this Gull has assumed almost the complete winter dress of the adult—the white spot near the end of the primaries perhaps alone not being well marked. The following spring—when the bird is in its fifth year—sees it in its first nuptial plumage, which we have described above. As soon as that interesting period is over, the Gull begins to assume its first mature winter garb, which differs only from that of the summer in showing brown streaks on the head and neck. “The flight of this bird is peculiarly elegant”—if we may quote again from Macgillivray—“‘ resembling that of the Greater Black-backed Gull, but more easy and buoyant, with the wings considerably curved. Its ordinary cry is loud, mellow and somewhat plaintive, and when a number join in emitting it, which they sometimes do when assembled for repose on an unfrequented beach or island, may be heard at a great distance, and is then far from unpleasant. It also emits occasionally a cackling or laughing cry, more mellow than that of the species above named. It searches for food on the open sea, in estuaries, on the beaches and frequently on the land, sometimes flying to a great distance from the coast. Small fishes, crustacea, echini, shell-fish [especially Zed/inma tenuis], land-mollusca and earth-worms [moths and other insects] are its habitual food; but it also eats of stranded fishes, and devours young birds. When shoals of young herrings are in the bays, creeks, or estuaries, it may often be seen in great numbers, inter- mingled with other Gulls; but when reposing, whether on the sea or on the land, THE LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. 89 it generally keeps separate in small flocks....... Although I have robbed many Gulls nests, I have never been attacked, or even menaced by any of the larger species; other individuals, however, have experienced a different treatment.” Mr. Hewitson, on the other hand, relates of the present species :—‘‘ After they have begun to sit, they become very bold in the defence of their eggs; whilst among them, I was amused with one near the nest of which I was sitting; it retired to a certain distance to give it full force in its attack, and then made a stoop at my head, coming within two or three yards of me; this it continued to do incessantly till I left it.’ In the spring it may often be seen following the plough, picking up worms and grubs, like, and in company with, the Herring Gull; and when the farmer has sown his fields, this species may very frequently be seen helping itself to the grain. Mr. Thompson notes that this Gull is very fond of ascending rivers, as well as visiting inland lakes. Several of these birds may be seen, in winter and spring, in the river Lagan as far as the first fall above the sea, where the canal commences—the snowy whiteness and pure black of their plumage contrasting finely with the back-ground of dark foliage of the river banks. ‘‘ On one occasion,” continues the same naturalist, ‘‘I observed an adult bird fishing ..... high up the Lagan. iss while soon afterwards two immature birds flew up the course of the river till they joined him. They were no doubt the bearers of some particular intelligence, as immediately on their reaching the old bird, he wheeled about and the three proceeded with their utmost speed down the river. In like manner I once observed several of the Black-headed Gulls feeding in a ploughed field, half a mile from the shore of the bay, whence a single bird flew direct to them; the moment it arrived they all wheeled about, and, with their best speed, made for the bay, where it was low water at the time; they were not in any way alarmed in the field; the courier seemed to convey some special news.” The Lesser Black-backed Gull may be distinguished from the next species— the Greater Black-backed Gull—by its yellow feet and larger size, and the wings being proportionately longer; ‘‘the principal characteristics of Z. /uscus are the comparatively long tarsus and the small delicate foot” (Saunders), Vou. VI P g0 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. Family—L A RIDE. Subfamily—LARINA2. GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. Larus marinus, LINN. HE Great Black-backed Gull is among the largest of the Zarvide, and of our marine birds it is far and away the grandest. It is found as a breeding bird across Northern Europe, from within the Arctic Circle and Iceland as far as the 55th meridian, and down as low as the s5oth parallel of N. latitude. In winter it migrates from its northernmost homes southward to the Canaries; but remaining resident throughout the year in those less inclemently situated. In the western hemisphere it breeds in Greenland, Labrador, and the Atlantic coast of North America, and also on some of the Great Lakes. In winter it migrates thence from its more arctic nesting haunts southward to Florida. It is resident on most of the coasts of the British Isles during the autumn and winter, and it breeds in large or small colonies in a few rather widely separated localities in England; more numerously in Scotland, and in perhaps half a score of sites in Ireland. In England, it nests on Lundy Island; on the Scilly Isles; on the shores of Dorset and Cornwall, and on the Welsh and Cumberland coasts, as well as in Furness. No breeding place on the east coast is known. In Scotland, the islands of the Inner and Outer Hebrides, and the Orkney and Shetland archipelagoes afford endless sites for its colonies free from disturbance and exactly to its liking; the rocky islets of Loch Skeamaskaig and the boggy moors adjoining (Booth); and on Duncansby Head in Caithness. On the east coast, almost nowhere is it known to nest. In Ireland, Arranmore off the coast of Galway; the Magharie Islands off the shores of Kerry; Belfast Lough and the Bills of Achill, are among the better known breeding haunts of this species. The Great Black-backed Gull is a larger edition of the Lesser Black-back ; and as in that species, the female is smaller than the male, and has a less powerful beak. In plumage the two sexes are exactly alike at the same age and in the corresponding seasons. In its full summer dress it is really a splendid bird. The whole of the body pure white, with the exception of the back and wings, which, Hy yy ti, SQWRK ag GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL ¢t THE GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. gL —but for the white tips of many of the quills, of the scapulars and of the secondaries, where they form a prominent alar bar—are black (varying to slate-blue) in striking contrast to the rest of its plumage; “the uttermost primary white for nearly three inches, its upper part blackish; the second similar with a black spot or a narrow subterminal bar according to age on the inner web; third quill with an indication of white on the shaft..... blackish above, next the shaft, with a fairly visible greyish wedge ending in white on the inner web; fourth and fifth quills with more defined grey wedges on the inner webs, and a black sub-apical bar; remaining quills slate-grey, except the tips”; a circle round the eye scarlet; iris pale yellow; bill yellow, its angle yellowish-red; legs and feet bluish-white ; length of the male 29 inches; wing 20; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 3. The Great Black-backed Gull mates early in April and, by the beginning of May, the couple have fixed on a site and arranged their home. This may be placed near the shore; sometimes among bare stones; ona high steep hill side; on open moors; on an island in a fresh water loch; or on the top of a “stack” or in- accessible cliff; but rarely on the ledge of a precipice. It is gregarious, but less so than many other species. Harvie-Brown and Buckley describe, in their “ Inner Hebrides,” ‘‘one colony known to us [where] there are about fifty pairs ... and on another island perhaps even a more extensive colony mixing with, or keeping slightly apart from, the Herring and Lesser Black-backed species.” The nest is not, as a rule, a very elaborate structure; and it differs in the materials of which it is built with the site. If near the sea, it may be of loose grass, seaweed, or any vegetable material the locality provides; if inland, of grasses or plants and a few feathers. Herein are deposited two or three eggs, the latter being the more usual number. ‘They are far more regular in colour than those of the last described species. They are covered with small irregular spots, sometimes blotches, but occasionally scrolls upon a greyish-brown ground. In size they run to about 33 inches in length by 2% in diameter. In the beginning of June young chicks may be found in the nurseries as charming little balls of down, of a pale brown greyish-white, or sandy colour, spotted with black on the head, neck and back, elsewhere speckled with grey; underneath greyish white and with few, or no spots; bill brownish-black at the base, pale horn anteriorly, light at the tip; legs and feet livid flesh colour. They are able to run the moment they are hatched almost, and they will take to the water when a few days old. Mr. Pearson saw a nestling swim down a rough river to an island a mile lower. They take from five to six years to attain their fully adult plumage. When fledged the head and neck are greyish-white, streaked with greyish-brown ; the upper side streaked or mottled with blackish-brown and greyish-brown; tail 92 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. feathers mottled and barred with blackish-brown, but without a well defined band as in most of the Gulls. This species goes through almost the same changes in its progress towards maturity, as those already described under the Lesser Black-backed Gull. In their fifth or sixth year they assume their nuptial dress for the first time; and at the close of the breeding season they change into their true, and what will be their annual, winter garb, which only differs from their summer plumage in showing greyish-brown streaks on the crown and nape. These will be the only two changes that this Gull will annually exhibit for the rest of its life. “The Great Black-backed Gull,” writes Macgillivray, and his description is so full and interesting that we make no excuse for quoting the following lengthy extract, ‘is among the most beautiful of a tribe remarkable for beauty. The contrast between the dark purple tint of his back and wings and the snowy white of the rest of his plumage... . renders him an object at all times agreeable to the sight. No sprinkling of dust, no spot of mud, ever soils his downy clothing; his bill exhibits no tinge derived from the subject of his last meal, bloody or half putrid though it be; and his feet, laved by the clear brine, are ever beautifully PUI 4 2a ‘‘When watching for Eagles in a covered pit, 1 have seen it come to the carrion, alight at a little distance, look around, walk up to it with short steps, and commence tugging at the entrails or tearing morsels from the flesh. In this it is sometimes joined by the Herring Gull. Should a Raven arrive, the Gulls continue their repast, the parties not interfering with each other if the object be large; but to the eagle, whether the Golden or the White-tailed, they feel obliged to yield, retiring to a short distance, and walking impatiently about, until the unwelcome intruder departs .... Vigilant and suspicious, it is not easily approached at any season, it being of all our Gulls that which forms the most correct estimate of the destructive powers and propensities of man. Chief of its tribe, and tyrant of the seas, it evinces a haughty superiority which none of our aquatic species seem inclined to dispute. Little disposed to associate with its inferiors, it passes its leisure hours, or periods of repose on unfrequented parts of the sands, or on shores, or islets, often on the bosom of the sea just behind the breakers, where it floats lightly on the waves, presenting a beautiful appearance as it rises and falls on the ever-varying surface. In winter it is scarcely gregarious, more than a few individuals being seldom seen together; but when there are shoals of fish in the bays or creeks, it mingles with the other Gulls, from which it is always easily distinguished by its superior size and very loud and clear cry, which may be heard in calm weather at the distance of a THE GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL 93 mile. Frequently when flying it emits also a loud rather hoarse cackle, having affinity in sound, although not analogous in nature, to a human laugh. All the larger Gulls are in one sense laughter-loving birds; but if we take note of the occasions when their cachinnations are edited, we discover that so far from being the expressions of unusual mirth, they are employed to express anxiety, alarm, anger and revenge. Its flight is strong, ordinarily sedate, less wavering and buoyant than that of smaller species, but graceful, effective, and even majestic. There, running a few steps and flapping its long wings, it springs into the air, wheels to either side, ascends, and on outspread and beautifully-curved pinions, hies away to some distant place. In advancing against a strong breeze, it some- times proceeds straight forward, then shoots away in an oblique direction, now descends in a long curve so as almost to touch the water, then mounts on high. When it wheels about, and sweeps down the wind, its progress is extremely rapid. It walks with ease, using short steps, runs with considerable speed, and like the other Gulls, pats the sands or mud on the edge of the water with its feet. It generally rests standing on one foot, with its head drawn in; but in a dry place it often reposes by laying itself down. Its food consists of small fishes cast on the shore, of crustacea, shell-fish, echini, and marine worms. In winter it frequents the hills and moors in search of carrion, and in summer and autumn often preys upon the young of various sea-birds. I have seen it eating the flesh of a stranded whale along with the Raven, and carrion on the hills along with that bird and the Eagle. Sometimes, but not often, it searches the ploughed fields for worms.” In Iceland this Gull has, according to Mr. Pearson, the reputation of being more destructive to young lambs than even the Ravens. “In the Highlands,” writes Mr. Booth, “the Great Black-backed Gull causes considerable loss to many of the small sheep farmers and crofters, who are unable to give the necessary care and protection to the few animals they possess. A weakly ewe is no sooner discovered than she is set upon, and after being either forced into some crevice among the rocks, or slowly butchered by thrusts from their powerful bills, the lamb next falls an easy victim. . . . [Of such facts] during the last few years several instances have come under my observation ... The young of Grouse and many other birds breeding on the moors are also greedily devoured by these robbers, and no exposed egg is safe if once it has attracted their notice. Those that breed along the sea-cliffs seldom make foraging excursions inland, their prey being gathered for the most part along the shore or out at sea; in some instances the nests of their neighbours are also plundered. Though their plumage is pure and spotless as the driven snow, these voracious birds are decidedly 94 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. omnivorous; carrion, however foul, putrid fish, or any floating refuse, comes by no means amiss, when more tempting prey is scarce. “Any one who has spent much time punt-gunning on the Highland Firths along the north-east coast during the first quarter of the year . . . must have been much annoyed by the presence of these Black-backs. No sooner does the gunuer make preparations for approaching an unsuspecting bunch of fowl, than three or four screaming-Gulls gather over the flock and after flying round for a time their excitement increases as the punt draws near, till at last darting down open-mouthed they drive every bird from the water and put an end to all chance of a shot. . .. In my notes for 1869, while shooting in the Dornoch Firth, I find that on March 15, at least half-a-dozen fair shots at bunches of Pintails, all fine drakes, were lost by the Gulls constantly keeping in attendance.” Mr. Harting notes, of a specimen he kept in captivity for some years, that the tame bird fully exemplified its omnivorous habits. ‘Nothing seems to come amiss to him—meat, both raw and cooked, fish, mice, small birds, snails, worms, flies, are all consumed in turns as opportunity offers. If a live mouse is turned down on the lawn before him, he at once gives chase, and coursing rapidly in pursuit of it, like a Wagtail after a fly, seizes it with unerring aim behind the head, and after a sharp pinch or two, which crushes the skull and larger bones, the unfortunate mouse is swallowed whole. Sparrows and other small birds are treated in the same way, being invariably first crushed and then swallowed, head first whole. Iu this way I have seen him take five sparrows in rapid succession.” Ep TINO sSnoonvTy Ye THE GLAUCOUS GULL. 95 Family—LARIDAG. Subfamily—LARINA. GLaucous GULL. Larus glaucus, FABER. HE Glaucous Gull, or as it is sometimes called the Burgomaster, is not a British breeding bird, but there are few years that do not see a considerable number of them on our shores as autumn and winter visitors, when the bird is on retreat from its true home, which at that season it often finds rather too frigid for its taste. It is more common in Scotland than in England, while in Ireland it is “occasionally obtained on the coast” (Thompson); but as that Naturalist has remarked it may be not so rare in England or in Ireland as supposed, because it is not improbably often mistaken for an immature Great Black-backed Gull. In England it has occurred at most points of the southern coast, but it has been oftener noted on the East coast, than on the West. The same remark applies to Scotland; for its occurrences are fewer on the Atlantic side. Considerable flocks visit the outer Hebrides; according to Mr. Robert Gray these rarely go inland, but remain on the shores of islands where large areas of sand and mud are exposed at low tide, leaving quantities of garbage for them to feed upon. In the Shetland Isles it is seen in larger numbers than perhaps any other part of Scotland, and flocks—almost exclusively of young birds—may be seen very late in the year. The estuaries of the Forth of Tay are also specially frequented by this species. In Ireland it has been recorded from Youghal, from Strangford Lough; from Movile, near Londonderry; from Dublin Bay and the vicinity of Waterford. The true home—or breeding range—of this species is that vast tract of the globe lying round the north pole down to about the 7oth parallel of latitude. During the winter it migrates southward, in the eastern hemisphere, in large numbers as far as 50° N., and in more attenuated flocks as far as the Mediterranean, the Caspian and Black Seas; and to Japan on the western side. In the western hemisphere, on the Atlantic coast almost to the Tropic of Cancer, and on the western sea board to California. The Glaucous Gull is one of the largest and most powerful of the Zaride, “quite equalling, sometimes also exceeding, the Great Black-backed Gull in size. 96 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs. In the spring and early summer this species is on the move northward to its breeding haunts, and beginuing to assume its nuptial dress, which is identical in both sexes, which in size, however, exhibit great variation; yet the females in a colony are, as a rule, smaller than the males. In breeding plumage the body is pure white everywhere except the back, wing-coverts and wings, which are pale pearl-blue; the primaries are pale pearl-blue at their bases and on the external web, with a long white termination; the tips of the scapulars and secondaries white; the large and strong bill gamboge yellow, with a bright vermilion spot on the angle of the lower mandible; ring round the eyes yellow; legs and feet pale flesh colour. Length of male 30 inches; wing 18}; tail 74; tarsus 3; middle toe with its claw, 22. There is, however, much individual variation. Sabine records a specimen 32 inches with a tarsus 3}. According to Professor Newton, Dr. Malmgren found this Gull choosing the “highest part of the cliffs for nidification. He further found it breeding high up on the mountain sides, apart from any other species. In Loom Bay, he also teils us, he has seen it swoop down like a Falcon on a young Dovekie [Uria gryllc] seize it in its beak, and eat it on a projecting part of the nearest rocky cliff on shore, where many skeletons are witness to its former rapacity. I have before mentioned that I saw a Burgomaster attack a young Briinnich’s Gullemot.” The nest is, as a rule, a heap of seaweed or vegetable debris piled on a rock; if situated on the ground it is formed by a hole scraped in the ground and lined with grass or seaweed; on the barren tundras it is composed of sand heaps hollowed on the top. According to Professor Newton, it frequently breeds in Greenland by itself; but as a rule in company with Kittiwakes and Iceland Gulls. With regard to the nesting of this species, Mr. Trevor Battye in his interest- ing ‘“‘Ice-bound on Kolguev”’ observes that ‘the nests of the Glaucous Gulls which we visited were situated on the highest ridge of the outer sand banks to the south of Scharok Harbour. They were visible from a very long distance, and proved to be lumps formed of sand mixed with sea-weeds and great quantities of hydrozoa (Sertularia and others) on which flourished Avrenaria peploides. ‘The sand had in many cases originally collected round drifted timber, and the birds had taken advantage of this to raise upon it a pile some two feet and more in height. As the Samoyeds rob these nests constantly, one wonders that any young get off. Hyland was so violently mobbed by these birds, which stooped right down at his head, that he shot two ‘in self defence.’”’ Three eggs are the usual complement; they are oval in shape and about 3 inches long by 2% in diameter. Their colour is pale yellowish-grey dotted with THE GLAUCOUS GULL. 97 small dark brown spots, and black blotches, those underneath the surface purplish- grey. Often there are very few spots or markings. Mr. Seebohm attributed the beautiful reddish-buff eggs which are often obtained in certain gulleries to the present species; but the investigations of Mr. Pearson in 1896 seem to have definitely settled the question that they are laid by the Herring Gull /Z. argentatus/ “at any rate,” he says, “I was told last year that Larus elaucus had ceased to breed at Vardé for some time, yet red eggs are still obtained there. The reader is referred to Mr. Pearson’s observations on this subject quoted on page 82, in our description of the Herring Gull. According to Neumann this species incubates for four weeks, and the chicks, that then emerge, are clothed in dust-grey down, the head and back mottled with brown. The young bird appears, on becoming fully fledged, in a rich cream-coloured plumage, streaked above and below with greyish-brown, the head and neck with streaks of the same colour; upper surface transversely barred with pale brown, the feathers tipped with yellow; ‘‘outer quills clay-brown on their outer webs and paler on the inner webs; upper and under tail-coverts rather boldly marked with brown’”’ (Saunders); tail-bars broken up into irregular spots; bill yellow with a black tip; legs and feet brownish. It is not known how many seasons—-probably three autumns at least—this species has to pass before it dons the plumage of the adult. ‘In the spring preceding the final autumnal moult into adult winter dress, a mottled plumage is acquired of so pale a character that it fades during the summer into a creamy- white”? (Seebohm). “At the subsequent moult the pearl-grey [some of which may appear in the second autumn] [of the] mantle is assumed, but the new tail feathers show some faint brownish mottlings until the next year” (Saunders). The fully adult winter garb differs from that of the summer only in having the head and neck streaked with brown. The Glaucous Gull resembles in plumage, and is liable to be mistaken for, the Iceland Gull; but it is much larger, and has shotter wings; its flight also is heavier; and it has white tipped primaries, with no black on the outer ones at any age. This fine Gull is “notoriously greedy and voracious, preying not only on fish and small birds, but on carrion of every kind. One specimen killed on Captain Ross’ expedition disgorged an Auk, when it was struck, and proved on dissection to have another in its stomach. Unless when impelled to exertion by hunger it is rather a shy inactive bird, and has little of the clamorousness of others of the genus” (Richardson). Mr. Trevor Battye notes that ‘“ the Vor, VI. Q 98 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGs Glaucous Gulls, who were our very intimate friends, used to carry bivalves from the creek away on to the swamp behind the tent, till they had quite a collection there.” To the sportsman they are almost as great a nuisance and as irritating as the great Black-backed Gulls. ‘They carried off,’ so Mr. Booth narrates his experience, “several Plovers that had been knocked down and run beyond the range of the shoulder gun; and also repeatedly put up the ducks, while we were sculling to them, floating guietly on the firth utterly unconscious of danger.” “Dr. Edmondston . . . first introduced it to notice as a British Bird,’’ writes Professor Macgillivray, ‘““having obtained in Shetland a specimen of the young in the autumn of 1809 and another in 1814 which he presented to Mr. Bullock a eee ” Its favourite resorts are the estuaries of the more exposed bays, a few miles off the land, where it is often found assiduously attending the fishing boats, to pick up any offals that may be thrown overboard ; and it is often taken by a line and hook baited with fish, when engaged in their pursuit. It is greedy and voracious to a proverb; and when allured by carrion, which seems to be its favourite food, becomes comparatively indifferent to danger. It then quits the ocean and headlands, enters the bays, and boldly ventures inland. Its usual deportment is grave and silent, exhibiting little of the characteristic vivacity or inquisitiveness of its tribe. ... When it flies it extends its wings more than the other species of Gull, and its flight is also more buoyant; .. . and when not in quest of food, seldom comes within range of a fowling piece, but soars at a respectful distance, uttering at intervals, a hoarse scream, of a sound peculiar to itself. ... It is more perfectly an oceanic bird than perhaps any of the larger species of the genus; . . . I have always observed this species to be uncommonly fat when it first arrives in Zetland in autumn. Indeed, I hardly remember ever seeing any bird equal to it in this respect, a circumstance which, together with that of the singular compactness of its plumage, and voracious avidity for carrion, first induced me to suspect this marine vulture to be a native of the higher latitudes.” “Tt usually breeds where there is a large colony of other sea-birds, and to a large extent, it both feeds its young and itself on the eggs and young in down of its weaker neighbours, and renders itself a perfect pest to them. The young of the Hider, and of several other of the Sea-Ducks, are looked on by it as tender morsels; and in places to the extreme north, where these birds breed in large numbers, the Glaucous Gull is almost sure to be present, and devours large numbers of the young birds, pouncing down on and catching them just as it requires them.” (Dresser). #2 TINO ANVIE9| AYALVYAW| WAG SUSU mrDYoAgy WO THE ICELAND GULL, 99 Family—LA RIDA. Subfamily—LARINA. ICELAND GULL. Larus leucopterus, FABER. HE Iceland Gull, like the preceding species, which it so closely resembles in appearance, is only a winter and autumn visitor to our shores, driven by stress of weather. It has, however, been taken on all parts of the coasts of both England and Scotland from the Shetlands to Land’s-end. It is, as might be expected, more common in Scotland than in England. In Ireland it is “only known as a bird of extremely rare occurrence on the coast.” In 1892, however, large numbers visited Ireland and spread along the coasts from Donegal to Sligo, Mayo and Galway, and were fond of feeding after the plough. As in the case of the Glaucous Gull, it may not improbably more often be on our coast than is suspected; it may be mistaken for miniature Great Black-backed Gulls, and perhaps Glaucous Gulls are sometimes taken for Iceland Gulls. Like the last species, the Iceland Gull is also an Arctic inhabitant, having its home within the Arctic circle, breeding in Greenland, Jan Mayen Island, Alaska, ‘“‘and perhaps the American side of Baffin Bay” (Saunders). It is not known east of the 30th meridian, but a young specimen was obtained by Captain Blakiston in Japan. In winter it straggles southward as far as the latitude of the middle of France. The real discoverer of this species as a British Bird was the same enthusiastic naturalist as added the Glaucous Gull to our list—Dr. Edmondston, of Shetland. Except that the ring round the eyes is not vermilion, as it is in L. plaucus, but flesh colour, the Iceland Gull as far as colouration goes is in every respect similar to the Glaucous Gull, and by this character cannot be separated from it; the legs and feet are livid flesh colour. In dimensions, however, the Iceland Gull is invariably a smaller bird than its counterpart, and it has a proportionately longer wing, indeed ‘“‘the largest male Z. /ewcopterus does not attain to the length of wing found in the smallest female Z. g/aucus” (Saunders). The female of the Iceland Gull is smaller than the male. The length of L. leucopterus is 23 inches; wing 16; tarsus 23, and middle toe with its claw, 23. Mr. Harvie-Brown who has studied both birds in their native haunts, says, 100 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. that “apart from the inferior size of Z. /eucopterus, which in itself alone cannot be accepted as a criterion for distinction, this species can be separated by the field naturalist from the Glaucous Gull by its neater, more slender appearance, standing higher on its legs, having a more curvate shape posteriorly, and the wings more tapering when closed. Further it appeared to me that the Glaucous Gulls, when resting on the mud, and with the wings closed, carried the tips of the wings higher than the end of the tail, but that the Iceland Gulls carried their wings on the same, or nearly the same level as the tail; thus imparting to these birds a more tidy trim appearance than their big brothers possessed. When flying the action of the Iceland Gull is more airy and buoyant—less owl-like— than that of the Glaucous Gull. The adults when flying low, or against a dark cloud, show the white primaries, like a narrow strip of silver along the wing.” The Iceland Gull mates and begins the work of nidification in the month of May, and early in June eggs may be found. The sites most affected by it are ledges of precipices, or on the bare ground, or on the summit of high rocks. The nest, if on the ground or on the sand, is a mere depression in which from two or three eggs are deposited, very similar in colour and markings to those of the Glaucous Gull, but in size smaller. They are of a pale greyish- buff, to yellowish-brown or pale olive ground colour, spotted and blotched over with chocolate-brown, or purplish-brown as seen through a surface layer of shell. In size these eggs average about a little under 3 inches in length by a little over 2 inches in diameter. The young in all their stages agree, so far as known, with the young of the Glaucous Gull, except that they are proportionately smaller. The young, which as a rule arrive on our coasts in the end of autumn, are greyish-yellow, with brownish-grey streaks on the head and neck; and transverse markings of the same on the back and tail; the outermost primaries white, and the remainder greyish-white beneath, mottled with brownish-grey on a yellow ground; bill flesh colour at the base; dark brown externally; legs and feet livid flesh colour. In winter the Iceland Gull has the same dress as in summer save that the head and neck show greyish-brown streaks. This species, though named the Iceland Gull, does not breed in that island; it may remain all winter there; but on the return of spring, it hies northward to its nesting haunts within the Arctic circle. According to Faber it is the only Gull “‘that passes the winter in Iceland without breeding in summer . . . a few days after the middle of September, the first specimens,” continues the same author, “both old and young make their appearance on the coast of Iceland, confining THE ICELAND GULL. 101 themselves to the northern parts, among the small inlets of which great numbers pass the winter. When I lived on the innermost of the small fjords on the northern coast, these birds were our daily guests. Towards the end of April their numbers decreased, and by the end of May they had nearly all disappeared from Iceland. These tame birds came on land by my winter dwelling on the northern coast, to snap up the entrails thrown away by the inhabitants, and fought fiercely for them with the Raven. I had made one so tame that it came every morning at a certain time to my door to obtain food, and then flew away again. It gave me notice of its arrival by its cry. This Gull indicated to the seal-shooters in the fjord where they should look for the seals, by continually following their track in the sea, and hovering in flocks, and with incessant cries over them; and whilst the seals hunted the sprat and the capeling towards the surface of the water, these Gulls precipitated themselves down upon the fish and snapped them up. In like manner they follow the track of the cod-fish in the sea, to feed upon the booty hunted up by this fish of prey.” Throughout the winter of 1820-21 he tells how there were no Gulls, till suddenly on the and of March the Iceland Gull arrived in great numbers. ‘‘ The Icelanders concluded, from the sudden appearance of these Gulls, that shoals of cod-fish must have arrived on the coast. They got ready their boats and nets, and the fish had in truth arrived in such numbers that the fishing for that season commenced immediately. Here where hitherto an ornithological quiet had reigned, everything now became enlivened through the arrival of these birds, which, without inter- mission, and with incessant cries, hovered over the nets... . this Gull was my weather guide in winter. If it swam near the shore, and there, as if anxious, moved along with the feathers puffed out, then I knew that on the following day storms and snow were to be expected. In fine weather it soared high in the air. Hundreds often sit on a piece of ice and in that way are drifted many miles.” Dr. Saxby observes that this Gull may readily be recognized at any distance “by its acutely pointed and somewhat long white wings and by a peculiar roundness of body. The note, also, has a character of its own, somewhat re- sembling that of the common goose. The bird seems to be partial to vegetable food, often resorting to the fields, where it may not seldom be seen near the pigs, which in Shetland are tethered by long ropes fastened to a stone or stake in the ground. Possibly the earth worms rooted up may be an attraction. In the stomach I have found a considerable quantity of oats and vegetable fibre with numerous small pieces of quartz.” 102 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eacs Family—LARID. Subfamily—LA RINE. KITTIWAKE GULL. Rissa tridactyla, LINN. HE Kittiwakes have been separated from the true Gulls—z.e., those of the genus Larus, to which all the species we have been describing have belonged—into a genus by themselves (containing two species, a red legged and a dark legged form). ssa, is distinguished by the short tarsus; but chiefly by the rudimentary condition of the hind toe; the arched bill; the slightly forked tail; and by the young having a plumage quite unlike that of the adult or of other species of Lavine. The name ‘tridactyla’, or three toed, is not strictly correct, as the first toe, though very small, is present. The Kittiwake—so named from its cry—is during summer one of the most common gulls in the British Isles, where there are suitable places for it. These suitable places are localities where there are ‘several precipices,” for it will build almost nowhere else. Where tall “‘stacks” and a bold precipitous coast occur, there pretty certainly will a colony of Kittiwakes be found, and as a rule in enormous numbers. It is vain to look for its nest on low sandy shores. It is more abundant, however, in Scotland and in Ireland than in England, because in the former countries the skerries and outlying rocks are more numerous. Lundy Island, Flamborough Head, and the Farne Islands are well recognized English colonies. The Hebrides, the Orkney and Shetland Isles, the ‘‘ Rowans,” near Wick, the Bass Rock, the Bullers of Buchan, and St. Abb’s Head harbour hundreds of thousands of these birds. In Ireland, the cliffs near Horn Head, the skerries off Portrush, Bills rock off Achill Island, the Great Isle of Arran, in Galway Bay, and Bull Island off the coast of Cork, are well known haunts of this pretty species. The range of this Gull in summer is very wide. It has been found breeding as far north as man has penetrated, previous to Nansen, who does not, however, record it at his ‘ Farthest”’ north, all round the shores of the Polar seas of the eastern hemisphere, and as low as the north west of France. In the western hemisphere it extends across the whole of North America except at one or two points, whence it has not yet been recorded, but where no doubt it will yet be AYNLYNW | 6 TINS AYVMILLIY AAS SAGEBBU&i Sx NSAAVVAVBQ&EC_ BA Q aac RSS KA THE KITTIWAKE GULL. 103 found, and ranges southward as far as the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the eastern side, and the Kurile islands on the Pacific sea-board. In winter it migrates southward, but many flocks remain in the more temperate parts of its range throughout that season. It reaches as far as the Mediterranean and along the west coast of Africa, and in the American continent to the south of Carolina on the one side, and of San Francisco on the other. In size and plumage both sexes are alike. In the end of March the adults, when they are on their northern journey and making for their skerry nurseries, are coming into their full nuptial dress. At this season the head, the entire neck down to the upper back, the rump, the upper-tail coverts, the tail and the entire under side are pure white; the mantle dark lavender grey; the scapulars and secondaries tipped with white; in the wing—which is pointed and extends for an inch and a half beyond the tail—the primary shafts are ashy; ‘‘ quills chiefly grey, but the outer web black in the first, grey in the others; terminal portions of first to third primaries black; fourth quill with extreme tip white, surmounted by a black bar, and the fifth similar, with a narrower bar; in the sixth there is, sometimes, a subterminal black bar varying in breadth and at other times a mere black speck the size of a pin’s head on the outer web, while in mature birds the entire feather is spotless grey, with whitish inner margins, as are the succeeding primaries and the upper parts of all’? (Saunders) ; bill pale greenish yellow; legs blackish brown, toes darker; ring round the eye rich yellow. Length 17 inches; wing 12}; tail 5; tarsus 13; middle toe with its claw, 2. The Kittiwakes begin in the middle of April and on to the end of the month, and into May, to construct their rather large nests of mud, sea-weed, fresh-water algze or grass, placing them on the ledge (often a quite narrow one) of the precipitous rock the colony may have chosen—which they return to year after year. So narrow, as Macgillivray remarks, are the ledges they choose, that the nests seem ‘stuck against the face of the rock like those of Swallows.” They build also in caves in the cliffs, and occasionally on the grass—in all these situations often in association with Little Auks and Gullemots. Very often storms and rain-deluges wash away these nests off the rocks, with the result that their breeding season is greatly lengthened. The Kittiwake lays two to three eggs of about, on an average, 2} inches in length by 1} inch in diameter, spotted pretty uniformly all over with dark brown and purplish-brown (the spots beneath the surface) on a ground which varies from white, through yellowish- or greenish-white and olive-green to purplish- brown. ‘The surface of the shell is less polished than in most other Gulls’ eggs. 104 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. Buckley and Harvie-Brown say that ‘“‘ before beginning to make their nests the Kittiwakes do not frequent the rocks much, but sit in flocks on the water just below. When forming their nests one bird seems to remain at home to guard the materials collected, generally sea-weed of some sort, while the other forages for it. As soon as the bird arrives with the weed, it drops it on the ledge, and the other takes it up in its bill, places it where it wants it, and then stamps it down. After a short rest and a few little interchanges of an amiable nature, the first bird drops lightly off the ledge and flies off for more material. Every now and then a bird will commence its cry of ‘ Avtte-ake, Kitti-ake, which is taken up by the others near it until the noise is quite deafening. A stranger lighting near the nest of another bird is instantly driven off, and this occasions another outcry of ‘ A7v/t-ake. A bird in immature plumage, but not of the year, was not allowed to land on the ledges, but was driven off immediately it tried to settle.” The Kittiwake incubates its eggs for about a month, at the end of which time, the little chicks emerge covered with long down, buffish-white everywhere except on the back and thighs which are dark-grey, margined with creamy yellow; bill bluish-black, legs and feet lead-blue. These little creatures are bound, on account of the site of the nest, to remain in or close to their birth-spot till they have become fledged. During their tender months they are assiduously fed by their parents. Mr. Harvie-Brown has recorded some notes sent him by Mr. Watt of Skaill, in the Orkneys, that when these Gulls are building their nests, they are in ‘‘constant flight from early morn until late at night, taking a track one way coming from the headlands, and another returning. They pick up a fresh-water weed, that is thrown up on our loch, for the purpose of making their nests soft and comfortable. When their young are out the same flight continues to and fro. I concluded that it was with food for their young, so shot one to see what it was. The crop was full, and on opening it, was astonished to find a mass of Daddy-long-legs, like, at first sight, a ball of worsted.” ‘The young Kittiwake is fed in a manner something similar to a pigeon. The old one arrives and sits on the edge of the nest, its neck largely distended with food, remaining there for some time as if ruminating. Presently she puts her head down and shakes herself, probably as soon as she feels the food is sufficiently macerated; she then opens her mouth and the young one puts its bill into hers, and takes out the food, and this is done until it is satisfied. The old bird never feeds the young until she has sat some time on the ledge, however importunate it may be, no doubt because she feels the food is not in a fit state for it to digest easily’ (Harvie-Brown). THE KITTIWAKE GULL. 105 “The most interesting period of the Kittiwake’s life,” writes Seebohm, “is when it is engaged in the duties of rearing its young. A Kittiwake colony is one of the most charming sights a rock-bound coast can afford. Early in spring the birds return to their old nurseries, visiting them almost daily until the work of building or restoring the nests commences. The places this Gull prefers are steep cliffs—rocks which fall sheer down to the water—on the ledges and shelves of which it places its somewhat well made nest. If the cliffs are tenanted by other sea-birds the Kittiwakes usually select the lowest part of the rocks, often making their nests a few feet from the water; but in other situations where they have the rocks to themselves they utilise every suitable situation ..... the largest colony of birds which I have ever seen is that at Svcerholt, not far from the North Cape in Norway, on the cliffs which form the promontory between the Porsanger and the Laxe Fjords. It is a stupendous range of cliffs, nearly a thousand feet high, and so crowded with nests that it might easily be supposed that all the Kittiwakes in the world had assembled there to breed. The number of birds has, however, been greatly exaggerated ...... supposing the non- breeding birds to be ten to one, surely a very high estimate, we only reach five and a half million birds ... . it is the custom to fire off a canon opposite the colony ; peal after peal echoes and re-echoes from the cliffs, every ledge appears to pour forth an endless stream of birds, and long before the last echo has died away it is overpowered by the cries of the birds, whilst the air in every direction exactly resembles a snow-storm, but a snow-storm in a whirl-wind. The birds fly in cohorts; those nearest the ship are all flying in one direction, beyond them other cohorts are flying in a different direction, and so on, until the extreme distance is a confused mass of snowflakes. It looks as if the fjord was a huge chaldron of air, in which the birds were floating, and as if the floating mass was stirred by an invisible rod.” In the words of Faber :—‘‘ They hide the sun when they fly, they cover the skerries when they sit, they drown the thunder of the surf when they cry, they colour the rocks white where they breed.” When fledged the young have the front of the head, the throat, chest and entire under surface white; the hind head and the nape of the neck greyish-black, forming a demi-collar; a spot in front of the eye and a patch behind the ears of the same colour, the demi-collar, followed by a band of white, distinctly washed with lavender grey and by “a broad black band with irregular edges, across the secondaries, and for some distance on each side of the neck ”’ (Saunders) ; back and wings deep lavender grey tipped with brownish black; the outer edge of the wing, and wing coverts mottled with black—forming a dark alar bar; the inner secondaries showing a long patch of black on the outer Vor, VI R 106 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eccs webs, the primaries and quills black, “the seventh often plain but sometimes with a minute black spot on the outer web” (Saunders); tail white with a broad brownish-black terminal band, narrower on the outermost feathers; bill, legs and feet dark-brown. When in this plumage the young Kittiwakes are called Tarrocks. There is a partial moult during the first autumn of the bird’s life—the body feathers changing; but not the wing or tail quills—during which the dark feathers in the hind neck become paler. At the various subsequent autumn moults the back and wings gradually lose the blackish-brown and become dark lavender-grey ; and the neck collar becomes less and less and finally fades out. The adult birds after their incubating labours are over, change their summer attire for their first winter plumage, which differs from that they have just put off in showing spots of dark grey in front of and behind the eyes; ‘on the head and neck some slate colour, which is pale on the crown, deepens on the nape, where it almost forms a band, becomes blackish at the auriculars, and passes into white on the shoulders” (Saunders). As soon as the young are able to fly the parents quit the nurseries, and move along the coasts, recruiting after their labours and undergoing their autumnal moult before proceeding to their southern retreats—that is such of them as are going to migrate. In many parts of our coasts Kittiwakes are to be seen during winter; it is of course difficult to determine whether these birds belong to the colonies that have bred in England, or whether they have come from further north and are making our more temperate regions their winter retreat. It is a true marine bird, and keeps very rigidly to the shore and coast, rarely straying inland; still it has been observed, by the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, in his “ Lakeland,” that in the spring of the year a few Kittiwakes often assemble in the fields, a few miles from salt water, to feed on the worms and grubs exposed by the plough. The Kittiwake is a poor walker on account of the shortness of its legs; it rests ‘“‘either standing or lying like the other birds of this group; associates occasionally with Gulls and Terns; is of a gentle disposition, sociable and altogether amiable .... It flies with a rapid and constant beat of its curved wings; glides and wheels and hovers over the smooth sea, or skims lightly over the high waves, descending into the furrows, and rising buoyantly to surmount the advancing wave” (Macgillivray). The Kittiwake feeds on crustacea, shell-fish, any surface floating marine life, which, dropping down upon with elevated vibrating wings, they pick up most deftly. Dr. Malmgren, according to Professor Newton, found the stomachs of Kittiwakes, opened by him, filled with Zimacina arctica and Clio borealis. THE KITTIWAKE GULL. 107 “While fishing and shooting in the channel off Shoreham, Lancing and Worthing, during autumn, I remarked that the young Kittiwakes generally put in an appearance soon after the beginning of September .... I noticed they were capable of devouring immense quantities of herrings and any amount of sprats and fish-liver when cut up into small pieces; [which] we used to feed the swarms of these birds [with]... . the Kittiwakes would hover in hundreds just over the stern, darting down when small pieces of fish were flung overboard, and seizing the morsel before it reached the water.” (Booth). Harvie-Brown and Buckley mention in their “Fauna of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides” a curious habit observed by Mr. H. Evans from his yacht. Kittiwakes were seen close by his vessel uvder water in pursuit of fish. ‘Two Kittiwakes,” he notes, ‘seen resting on the water, and things like open books under water, the next moment up popped six more Kittiwakes; we steamed into the middle of them, and there were eight instead of two. They were open winged under water, and rose apparently quite dry. They projected themselves into the water rather like Terns, but from a lesser height.” This bird is, on account of its beautiful wings, one of the few British species destroyed in large numbers for the purpose of supplying “plumes” for ladies’ wear. Thousands are yearly shot for this purpose at Lundy, “in many cases the wings torn off the wounded birds before they were dead” (Saunders), just as is so often done in the breeding haunts of the White Egret; off Brighton, is another slaughtering place, with the same object in view. The confiding nature of the bird leads it to its destruction; for Kittiwakes like Terns congregate fearlessly and within shot, round one of their fallen neighbours. 108 BRITISH BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. family—LARIDZE. Subfamily—LARINA. Ivory GULL. Pagophila eburnea, PHIPPS. HIS beautiful Gull, a true native of the Arctic regions, is a frequent visitor to this country. As might be expected, it is most frequently to be seen in the more northern regions of our islands. It has, since its first notice in 1822, been recorded on more than thirty occasions, both adults and young, and from all parts, down both coasts of England and Scotland, to Sussex on the east and Cornwall on the west. In Ireland it has not been observed so frequently. The bird is rarely seen so far from its haunts as our shores, except in winter, and especially in severe seasons. The Ivory Gull is at home all round the polar regions, and nests in a latitude higher than almost any other bird.) Its eggs have been found in 80 N. latitude, and Nansen saw the birds in from 82° 21’ north southward as far as Franz Josef Land, in large numbers. In winter, it migrates ‘‘as far as the coast of France and Lake Léman (once); and New Brunswick in America” (Saunders). In the North Pacific it is rare, though found on the Asiatic side of Bering Straits. In summer plumage, the Ivory Gull, often called the Ivory Whale-Gull and the “‘Snow-bird,” is entirely ivory white; the bill is greenish grey to the front of the nostrils, then tipped with rich yellow, flushed with red; a ring round the eye vermilion, or brick-red; legs and feet black. Length 19 inches; wing 14; tail 6; tarsus 14; middle toe and its claw 13. The female is similar to the male, but slightly smaller and with, if anything, a smaller tarsus. As to the nidification of this species Professor Collett has given an interesting account, in ‘The Ibis” for 1888, p. 440, from material and notes brought him by Captain Johannesen, from Stor-oén island, off the east of Cape Smith, Spitzbergen, in 80° 9’ N. latitude. On the 8th of August when he [Captain Johannesen] visited the island, he found young birds in all stages, from newly hatched to fully fledged, together with a small number of eggs, which, however, were on the point of hatching, and in all probability not one would have been left a week 9 AYNLYNW] $9 TIND AYOA] THE Ivory GULL. 109 later... . Z. edurneus was breeding on the N.E. side of the island, close to or only a short way above, high-water mark, on low-lying ground like Z. canus, L. fuscus, &c., and not in the cliffs. Captain Johannesen estimated the number of nests at from 100 to 150; they were somewhat apart, at distances varying from two to four yards .... there were one or two eggs or young, but never more in a nest... . several black-spotted young, capable of flight were seen, likewise several young birds of the previous year’s brood remained on the breeding ground. “The nest is composed chiefly of green moss, which forms about nine-tenths of its mass; the rest consists of small splinters of soft wood, a few feathers, single stalks and leaves of algze, with one or two particles of lichen... . under the microscope they [the splinters of soft wood] are proved to be of conifers, probably Larch, drifted from the Siberian rivers .... The average of nine eggs was 59.9 millim. in length by 33.7 millim. in breadth [2% inches long by 1# in breadth]. The ground-colour of five specimens is almost entirely alike, viz., a light greyish-brown tint with faint admixture of yellowish green, such as often appears on the eggs of Z. canus, which, however, have often a deeper brown or green hue. In structure and gloss all nine eggs greatly resemble those of L.canus .... The eggs are easily distinguished from those of Réssa tridactyla by their greater gloss, and the small excrescences do not lie so crowded, and area little more flattened than they usually are in the last mentioned species. ‘Newly hatched young in down . . . [are] white all over; the down white to the root. Even in this first stage, the young in down may be distinguished from the young of other species by the strong and hooked claws, especially on the hind toe, the somewhat marginated web on the toes, and the forward nostrils .... In a somewhat older bird ... . the tips of the feathers appear on the shoulders, which exhibit a broad dark-brown transverse band within the white and still down-bearing tips.” Fully fledged birds are more or less lavender-grey all over; birds still older but immature, have the throat and face grey, with black spots on the back and scapulars and on the secondaries. As they advance in age, the young Ivory Gulls have greyish black spots on the wing coverts; and a black spot at the tips of the primaries ; while the tail has a black sub-terminal bar. The spots get fewer with the bird’s age. In winter the plumage is the same as in summer. The Ivory Gull is a very fearless species as compared with other Gulls. Its note is spoken of by Captain Fielden as “shrill” and similar to the Arctic Tern’s. Nansen calls it ‘‘an angry cry.” ‘‘ They are very bold,” he says, ‘and last Vor. VI Ss) 110 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND Eacs night stole a piece of blubber lying close by the tent wall.” Dr. Nansen else- where in his ““Farthest North” tells how these birds behaved over the ‘“‘ remains” of a bear he had shot. “On the shore below the tent,” he says, ‘“‘the Ivory Gulls were making a fearful hubub. They had gathered in scores from all quarters and could not agree as to the fair division of the bear’s entrails; they fought incessantly, filling the air with their angry cries. It is one of nature’s unaccountable freaks to have made this bird so pretty while giving it such an ugly voice.’ This is quite in accordance with what has been recorded by Captain Fielden. ‘The Gulls gathered in large flocks from all quarters, both Ivory and Glaucous Gulls, and kept up a perpetual screaming and noise both night and day. When they had eaten as much as they could manage, they generally sat out on the ice-hummocks and chattered together. When we came down to skin, they withdrew only a very little way from the carcases [of the walruses], and sat waiting patiently in long rows on the ice beside us, or, led on by a few bold officers, drew continually nearer. No sooner did a little scrap of blubber fall than two or three Ivory Gulls would pounce upon it, often at our very feet, and fight over it until the feathers flew.” The Ivory Gull feeds, in the Arctic regions, on crustacea and Clio borealis. “They never lie down,” notes the Rev. A: E. Eaton, “like the Arctic Terns, but either walk or stand still; some of them walking far into the interior of the carcases of the white whales, and emerging with their heads covered with blood.” Professor Malmgren writes that in Spitzbergen the Ivory Gull ‘is seldom seem elsewhere than near the ice. It does not settle on the water like other Gulls, but it is invariably seen on the edge of the ice; and it takes its prey with its beak from the water when on the wing. This species and the Fulmar appear in numbers when a seal or walrus is being cut up, and are so little shy that if one throws out pieces of fat they will approach quite close. At these places, where the seals, &c., are cut up, the Fulmars swim round, whereas the Ivory Gulls are on the wing, or sitting on the ice. Martens remarks also that he did not see them swimming on the water. This Gull feeds on carcases left by the walrus-hunters or the remnants left over after the Polar bears have eaten; but its chief food consists of the excrements of the seal and walrus. I often observed on my excursions in places where the Ivory Gulls were numerous (as, for instance, in Murchison’s Bay, in 80° N. lat.), that they will sit for hours at the holes in the stationary ice, through which the seals come up to lie on the ice, waiting for the seals appearance. They look as if sitting in council round a table; and this practice has doubtless given rise to the curious name used by Martens in 1675 for this Gull, viz. ‘Rathsherr’ (councillor), a name analogous THE Ivory GULL. Ill in its derivation to that of ‘ Biirgermeister’ (mayor), used for the Glaucous Gull. Round these holes in the ice the resting places of the seals are coloured brown with their excrements, which are chiefly devoured by birds, only so much being left as will colour the snow. Martens says that he has seen the Ivory Gull feeding on the excrements of the Walrus.” “The Ivory Gull,” so Professor Newton has recorded in the “Ibis,” 1865, p- 507, ‘“‘is of all others the bird of which any visitor to Spitzbergen will carry away the keenest recollection. One can only wish that a creature so fair to look upon was not so foul a feeder. ...I have... . to add that contrary to the experience of almost all other observers, I once saw an Ivory Gull of its own accord deliberately settle on the water and swim. This was in the Stor Fjord. There is a very great variation in the size of different specimens of this bird, which is not at all to be attributed to sex, or, I think, to age; but I do not for a moment countenance the belief in a second species... .I here transcribe what Professor Malmgren, the fortunate finder of [the first well authenticated specimens of the eggs of this bird brought to Europe] says about them :—“ On the 7th July, 1861, I found on the north shore of Murchison Bay, lat. 80° N., a number of Ivory Gulls established on the side of a steep limestone precipice, some hundred feet high, in company with Larus tridactylus and L. glaucus. ‘The last named occupied the higher zones of the precipice. Larus eburneus, on the other hand, occupied the niche and clefts lower down, at a height of from fifty to a hundred feet. I could plainly see that the hen-birds were sitting on their nests; but these to me were altogether inaccessible. Circumstances did not permit me before the 3oth July to make an attempt, with the help of a long rope, and some necessary assistance, to get at the eggs. On the day just named I succeeded, with the assistance of three men, in reaching two of the lowest in situation, which each contained one egg. The nest was artless and without connexion, and consisted of a shallow depression, 8 or 9 inches broad, in loose clay and mould on a sublayer of limestone. Inside, it was carelessly lined with dry plants, grass, moss and the like, and also a few feathers. The eggs were much incubated, and already contained down-clad young... . “The locality just mentioned .. . . lies at the northern entrance of Hinlopen Strait... . I am, however, inclined to think the Ivory Gull breeds periodically in many other parts of Spitzbergen proper .... This species, like other Gulls, probably does not always breed in colonies; and as it is sure to select the most inaccessible places for the purpose, an occasional nest here and there might well escape notice.” According to Mr. Trevor-Battye the presence of ice has an attraction for the 112 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EcGs. Ivory Gull. If the ice depart; so do the birds—on its return the birds come also back. ‘I expect,” he says, “the explanation will be found in the fact that this truly Arctic species is greatly dependent upon seals’ ‘leavings’ of different sorts.” Family—STERCORA RIDE. GREAT SKUA. Megalestris catarrhactes, LINN. HE Great Skua, Skua-Gull, or Bonxie, as it is variously named, though truly a British breeding bird, is not a familiar one in the southern parts of the kingdom, except in very rough weather. It nests now only in the islands of Unst and Foula, in the Shetlands—where it is protected. During winter and autumn, a few individuals straggle southward, along the coasts of both England and Scotland. In Ireland it has been taken on a few occasions; but it has never bred there. Mr. Eagle Clarke’s account of the ruthless destruction of the bird, and the wholesale stealing of its eggs, shows that, unless some measures of protection are at once afforded to the Great Skua, this splendid member of our avifauna must soon be exterminated from Europe. Its nests have been found in Iceland and the Feroe Islands; but none have yet been taken in North America, nor in Greenland, which it visits, though in the former, not improbably, breeding stations may yet be found. In winter it wanders to North Africa, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, and on the western, as far as the shores of Massachusetts. Its large, size—it is as big as a Herring Gull—and dark colour, render it too conspicuous not to be distinguished at once from any other shore bird. The female is in colour of plumage exactly similar to the male, but she varies ale YOAUS LvaYy Saye Ns cnet eS Pe een THE GREAT SKUA. 113 slightly in size, and may be larger than, or equal to, her mate. The feathers of the neck are stiff and acuminate. The general colour of the bird’s entire plumage is deep umber-brown; the elongated neck feathers are streaked, those on the top of the head tipped, with brownish-yellow; the lower neck brownish-yellow; on the scapulars there is a pale area; wings dark brown; wing-coverts lighter; primary -coverts and quills brownish-black, with their shafts white except towards the end; a large portion of the bases of the primaries of the same colour (which does not extend to the outer web of the outer quill) forming a conspicuous alar patch, seen on the under side when the bird is on the wing, as well as when it is at rest; inner secondaries brown, outer lighter; tail coverts brown, with a reddish stripe; the tail feathers blackish-brown; whole of the under surface reddish-brown, with redder shaft-stripes on the throat and upper breast; under wing-coverts dark brown, washed with reddish-brown; bill black; cere greyish-blue; legs and feet black. Length 23 inches; wing 15} to 163; tail, whose middle feathers are longer than the rest, 63 to 7; middle toe, with its claw, 3; tarsus 2%. The nest of the Great Skua is generally a hollow trodden in a heather bush, or a bank of moss; in which, as a rule, two eggs and sometimes three are laid. The nests are not, however, made in such large colonies as is the case with most of the Gulls—a few pairs only breeding in proximity to each other. They are generally to be observed in pairs together, each at a little distance from the next. Mr. Richard Barrington has given, in the “‘ Zoologist,” an interesting account of his visit to this bird’s breeding place in Foula. ‘We landed,” he says, “on Foula at midnight, on June 22nd last [1890], from the mainland of Shetland, from which Foula is distant about eighteen miles. To the west of the island the cliffs are bold and striking, and form a jagged outline, which, for imposing grandness, is hardly to be surpassed. On the east and north-east the island is comparatively low, with cliffs varying from fifty to hundred and fifty feet, but there is no strand or stony beach anywhere, save where a mountain stream enters the ocean at a little creek in the rocks, and this strip of beach is only ten yards across..... “Foula is about three miles long and two broad, and its highest point is the Sneug, 1372 feet. The highest cliff is the Kame, 1220 feet..... “The island is not only bleak and exposed, but subject to sudden squalls of exceptional violence from the steep face of the storm-swept Sneug, the home of the Great Skua, towards which we went..... With one or two exceptions the Great Skuas all breed on the southern face. The nest is merely a depression on the surface. They seem to scratch a little at first, then smooth the place with their breasts. In one or two cases some withered leaves of Eriophorum were round the edge, apparently broken off because they were in the way. Having heard and 4 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGs. read so much about the boldness of the Great Skua in attacking intruders during the breeding season, there was at first some disappointment at their apparent want of courage. There were no eggs or young in any of the four or five nests; this might account for it. Away down the slope, about half a mile away, Richardson’s Skuas were seen, and a nest found with two eggs. “Walking on towards the depression between the Hamnafeld and the Sneug, Great Skuas appeared more numerously, about ten pairs being observed within a radius of two hundred yards. Many nests were met with, but not a single egg. Up to this the birds had not come nearer than ten to twenty yards, flying past and across us, now and then uttering a croaking noise, “‘ag-ag,” and sometimes alighting within thirty yards. Presently a pair became very bold, and when passing would swoop towards us. Thinking eggs or young must be close by, a delay was made to search carefully, and both Skuas then attacked us vigorously, so that our sticks were involuntarily raised to prevent them striking our heads. The modus operandi was this:—The Skua would start about sixty yards off, on the same level as our heads, and fly straight at us, not deviating an inch, and increasing in speed, then, when within a yard or two of our heads, the feet were lowered, claws extended, and with a terrific ‘swish’ and deep rushing noise of the wings, it would swerve upwards in a graceful curve, wheel then either to the left or right, descend again to the level of our heads, and repeat the performance with greater or less vigour, according as we approached or receded from the nest. The nests were sometimes within ten yards of each other, but more frequently thirty to forty yards asunder. I must have seen over sixty, but all had been robbed save one, and this one contained a single egg. It was the only nest seen at a lower level than eight hundred feet, and probably escaped the searching eyes of the native egg merchant. W. was more fortunate, and found in one spot a few nests with one to two eggs and one young bird. The general impression left was that the Great Skuas were flying round their robbed nests, intending either to make new ones close by, or lay a second time in the old nests. Three times only was I attacked in that extraordinary vigorous manner which has made the Great Skua so noted for its boldness; but, were the nests not robbed, and three or four pairs of Skuas defending their young at the same time, few visitors would have the courage to face them without a stick. The natives told me that in some instances the Skuas knocked off their hats, and have broken their wings against a stick suddenly held up as they swooped at the head of the intruder. No serious injury seems at any time to have been inflicted on a human being by a Skua. The birds probably weigh four or five pounds, and this weight striking a man on the head, and coming at such a velocity, would certainly kill him. THE GREAT SKUA. 115 “In every case in which a pair of Great Skuas were seen together, as if nesting, one bird was dark and the other light coloured, and the inference was that the colours might be sexual. ..... A dark bird was shot,..... and next day a light one was procured in another part of the island, also at a distance from the breeding grounds. The dark bird turned out to be a male and the light one 4 female. 29:4 5 whether the colouring is associated with age or sex, or is merely a phase which both sexes may present, as in Richardson’s Skua, I cannot say. The fact that the dark bird is smaller may have been accidental, for the difference in size was not detected when the birds were sitting or flying past; but if not accidental, and constant, the stouter and older looking bill and claws in the light Skua is in favour of the age theory. .... When the Skuas were sitting on the ground, side by side, the difference in colouration was in every instance noticed.” The eggs are laid in May and June. These are of an olive-brown ground- colour, with blotches of reddish-brown, or a darker brown, than the ground-colour, often entirely covering the larger end of the egg. They vary in length from 2% to 2? inches in length by 1% to 2 inches in breadth. The young emerge as down-clad chicks of brownish-grey, somewhat more rufous on the upper side. On becoming fully fledged the young birds assume at once the plumage of their parents, except for the shorter and less prominently pointed feathers of the neck, and the more rufous margins of the back feathers. Mr. Saunders says that “ beyond a certain freshness on the new feathers, there is no marked seasonal change, and the moult appears to be very gradual, the plumage of the neck and shoulders having generally a weather-worn appearance, as is also the case with many Raptores. Mr. G. T. Fox, who kept a bird alive for ten years, says it showed no change with age .... Melanotic varieties are occasionally met with, but the blackish tint is by no means intense.” What the dark and light coloured birds are, has not yet been settled satisfactorily, z.e., whether the difference in hue is due to age or sex, or simple variation, as the above quoted observations of Mr. Barrington show. The Great Skua has many of the habits of the Raptorial birds, though it does not seize and carry off its prey in its talons. It is a rapacious feeder, seizing and swallowing any bird it comes across, even as large as the Kittiwake. It causes other Gulls to disgorge the results of their fishing forays, and sometimes fishes on its own account. Dr. Edmondston gives it the character of being in captivity gentle and affectionate, and feeding on anything offered to it; but in defence of its eggs and young it is fearless and bold, and will attack either Raven or Eagle. In the Feroes it was, half a century ago at least, a proscribed bird, and, according 116 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. to Mr. Wolley, a certain number of heads were required to be sent in by every inhabitant annually. ‘I do not know,” he says, “if this is now strictly enforced ; but I have seen the people collect heads, when they had the opportunity, either of this bird, or the Raven, or the Great Black-backed Gull—that is when they were ready killed for them.” A less precise injunction has been so efficacious in our islands as to reduce the numbers of these birds almost to the vanishing point. But for the magnanimous protection given to them on the Shetlands, they would by this time have long ago ceased to exist as a British Bird. Family—STERCORARID A. POMATORHINE SKUA. Stercorarius pomatorhinus, TEMM. HIS very fine bird is often named the Twist-tailed Skua, from the two much elongated central feathers of the tail being twisted on their shafts, so that the terminal part of the web stands vertical, and looks as if it had a ‘‘ bob” to it. This peculiarity, however, is an excellent mark for identifying the bird by when on the wing. The Pomatorhine Skua is a very rare breeder in our islands, if indeed it has ever really done so. In their “‘ Fauna of the Outer Hebrides,’ Harvie- Brown and Buckley note that :—‘‘ Though believed to breed, or to have bred, in the Outer Hebrides, there has been no corroborative evidence since Gray wrote; but there cannot be any doubt as to its frequent, if not regular, summer visits to the coasts of these islands, and the seas to the west of Lewis.’’ It is an autumn and winter migrant, and a few are to be seen along the entire coast lines of England and Scotland almost every year. Occasionally large flocks occur, the coasts of Yorkshire being apparently a favourite rendezvous; and sometimes a few AUNLYNN] 83 VANS ANIHYOLVNOg 5 ty ee, 8, oie les ee ae A Fulmar .. a as Thee WE Fulmarus glacialis ane Seva Gadwall iv Gallinago calestis . v gallinula a: eas major... Ren fie OY Gallinula chloropus v Gannett... ‘ 11 Garden Warbler Fa Garganey.. . 38> eee Av Garrulus glandarius So ergs aL Gecinus viridis F Gelochelidon anglica Glareola pratincola Glaucous Gull Glossy Ibis .. 3 Golden-Crested Wren . a Eagle a3 Oriole Plover Goldeneye Goldfinch . Goosander — Gos-Hawk (2. e. Goose-Hawk) ii *Gould’s Little Shearwater. . Grasshopper Warbler . Great Auk Black-Backed Gull .. * Black-Headed Gull .. Bustard... va as Crested Grebe Grey Shrike Northern Diver .. * Reed-Warbler Shearwater .. Skua Snipe... * Spotted Cuckoo. Rite ay White Heron Greenfiuch ... Greenland Falcon.. Green Sandpiper .. Greenshank .. Gig Green Woodpecker | oe Grey Lag-Goose Phalarope .. Plover aa Wagtail.. .. *Griffon Vulture Grus communis .. Guillemot... Gull-Billed Tern ne *Gyps fulvus .. 6. an Hlematopus ostralegus .. Flaliaétus albicilla.. Harelda glacialis . Harlequin Duck Hawfinch.. .. Hedge-Sparrow Hen- Harrier Herring Gull .. .. .. Hlimantopus candidus .. Ffirundo +ustica .- .. Hobby: 25 se ae as Hooded Crow.. F Hoopoe Honey- Buzzard. House-Sparrow.... Lfydrochelidon hybrida.. leucoptera : nigra ‘ Fiydroprogne caspia *Hypolats icterina .. .. Iceland Falcon Gull ao) aa *Icterine Warbler .. -- Spotted Wetec iii Vol. page ss 1, -2T . vi 18 vi 389 vt 95 iv 44 i 84 ili 113 ii 2 v 76 iv 156 li 65 iv 192 iii 121 Vi 236 1-123 vi 132 vi go vi 75 vi 47 vi 181 ii 6 vi 164 1 116 vi 226 vi 112 v 107 lili 53 lii = 23 1 147 iv 13 11 40 lil 136 vi 154 vo 164 iii 27 iv 54 v 98 v.81 i 181 lili QI vo 44 Vi 138 vi 618 lil gi vgI iii 118 iv 162 iv 167 We 43 i 129 ili =96 vi 80 vi 96 li 30 iii 145 11 165 Wl 45 ili 133 ji 84 vi 15 vi 13 vi 5 Vi 23 1 107 lii 139 vl 99 *Isabelline pensetese Ivory Gull. Lynx torquilla .. Jackdaw ., Jack Snipe Jay .. Kentish Plover Kestrel F King-Eider Kingfisher Kite aces of Kittiwake Gull *Kill-Deer Plover Knot .. . Lagopus mutus Scoticus .. Lanius collurio excubttor minor pomeranus Lapland Bunting .. .. Lapwing .. .. .. bares argentatus ‘ cachinnans canus Suscus glaucus .. « ichthyaetus leucopterus MMATINUS.. 6. oe - melanocephalus minutus... philadelphia. . ridibundus * resser Black- Backed Gull. Grey Shrike.. - Kestrel .. Redpoll.. .. Ringed-Plover * Sooty Tern .. Spotted Woodpecker £ White. Fronted Goose Whitethroat.. *TLevantine Shearwater. Ligurinus chloris .... Limticola platyrhyncha .. Limosa belgica is aa ae Linnet ae Ge See Little Auk i Bittern .. * Bunting.. Bustard .. CraIEes sus ase Egret Grebe Gull Owl.. Stint Tern ae Ee Locustella luscinioides .. n@via .. Long-Eared Owl .. Tailed Duck Tailed Tit Vol. page i 32 108 li 17 li 153 Vv 113 li 146 vy 92 lit 152 iv 174 iii = 32 lii 127 vi 102 v5 vi 138 vo o12 v 9 ii 9 ii 6 ii 8 ii 12 li 123 vi 85 vi 80 Vi 242 vi 76 vi 85 vi 95 vi 75 vi 99 vi go vi 73 vi 65 vi 63 vi 68 vi 85 ii 8 iii 155 ti 73 v 70 vi 55 lii 27 iv 63 i 65 Vi 235 ii 40 vi oily Vv 169 v 167 li 80 154 iv 26 ii 118 v.50 vo 32 iv 15 vi 202 vi 65 iii 74 vi 126 = i 127 1 723 lit 63 iv 162 INDEX OF Loxia bifasciata .. .. _ curvirostra *Lusciniola schwarzi Machetes pugnax 7 Macrorhamphus griseus *Madeira Storm Petrel.. Magpie .. ' Mallard, or Wild Duck Manx Shearwater . *Mareca americana .. penelope .. Marsh- Harrier Meadow- -Pipit .. Mealy Redpoll *Mediterranean Black- Headed Gull. *Mediterranean Herring Gull Megalestris catarrhactes *Melanocorypha sibirica. Mergulus alle .. 2 Mergus albellus * cucullatus id neal serrator . Merlin = Merops apiaster * es Milvus ictinus . * MUTanNs . Missel-‘Thrush.. Montagu’s Harrier *Monticola saxatilts Moor-Hen.. .. . Motacilla alba.. flava... lugubris.. melanope rail . ‘ Mumenius arquata.. ‘ Muscicapa atricapilla ay grisola : parva Mute Swan *Needle-Tailed Swift *Neophron PETES Night-Heron .. .. .. Nightingale Nightj ar *Noddy : Nucifraga caryoca tactes ¥*Numenius borealis... phaopus re Nutcracker .. .. .. Nuthatch .... 33 Nyctala tengmalmi- aia Nyctea scandiaca ~ Nycticorax griseus.. demia fusca.. «+ nigra... perspict illata « Gdicnemus scolopax 145 ; *@strelata brevipes.. BIRDS *Estrelata hesitata ee Oceanites oceanicus *Oceanodroma cryptoleucura.. leucorrhoa Oriolus galbula *Orphean Warbler .. Ortolan Bunting Osprey: \ ag ae eg! “as Olts tarda. 1. «0 we tetrax es Olocorys alpestris .. Oyster-Catcher Pagophila eburnea.. Pallas’ Sand-Grouse Pandion haliaétus .. Panurus biarmicus Partridge . Parus ater caruleus cristatus.. major palustris Passer domesticus .. niontanus Pastor roseus .. Pectoral Sandpiper *Pelagodroma marina Perdix cinerea. : Peregrine Falcon &s Pernis apivorus Phalacrocorax carbo graculus.. .. Phalaropus fulicarius .. hyperboreus .. Phastanus colchicus Pheasant .. .. *Phenicoplerus roseus Phylloscopus rufus .. stbtlatrix superciliosus .. trochilus Pica rustica Pied Flycatcher Wagtail .. *Pine-Grosbeak Pink-Footed Bean Goose ie Pintail Platalea leucorodia Plectrophenax nivalis .. Plegadis falcinellus *Plotus anhinga Pochard % Podicipes auritus cristatus . fluviatilis griseigena nigricollis Polish Swan Pomatorhine Skua Porzana bailloni maruetla parva ‘ Pratincola vubetra . rubicola . Procellaria pelagica Ptarmigan #5 Puffin.. . Pufinus anglorum. . = assimilis Vol. 247 248 Puffinus gravis griseus % obscurus .. + yvelkouanus Purple Heron. Sandpiper Pyrrhocorax graculus .. *Pyrrhula enucleator europea . Quail . *QOuei quedula cai ‘olinensis circia ae crecca * discors > *Radde’s Bush-Warbler. . Rallus aqguaticus Raven ‘ Razorbill . at. yom a Recurvirostra avocetta - aa Red-Backed Shrike Redbreast . Red-Breasted Flycatcher ne Goose.. Merganser Snipe... Creste Pochard — Footed Falcon Grouse... Legged Partridge Necked Grebe * Nightjar Phalarope.. Redshank.. . Red- Spotted Bluethroat Redstart 3 3 Red-Throated Diver . Pipit ‘i Redwing .. .. Reed-Bunting .. Warbler.. Regulus cristatus ignicapillus .. *Rhodostethia rosea.. Richard’s Pipit Richardson’s Skua Ring-Ouzel.. Rissa tr idactyla Rock-Dove Pipit.. bs Thrush .. Roller. . ae Rook .. .. «. Roseate Tern .. , Rose-Coloured Starling Rough-Legged Buzzard Ruddy Sheld-Duck Ruff and Reeve *Rufous Warbler *Rustic Bunting Ruticilla phenicurus tilys.. : Sahine’s Gull .. Sanderling Sand-Martin Sandwich Tern Savi’s Warbler aw oe Saxicola ananthe .. a deserti * tsabellina * stapazina *Scandinavian Gyrfalcon aan Rose-Finch Scaup-Duck Sclavonian Grebe . Scolopax rusticula . Scops giu .. Scops-Owl ste Sedge-Warbler Serin a Serinus hortulanus.. Shag .. *Sharp- -Tailed Sandpiper Shore-Lark .. .. Short-Eared Owl .. Toed Lark Shoveler *Siberian Ground 1 Thrush ke Siskin Sitta cesia Sky-Lark . Smew. Suow- Bunting. - Goose Snowy Owl . *Sociable Plover *Solitary Sandpiper Somateria mollissima .. spectabilis stelleri 2 uae Song Thrush .. .. .. Sooty Shearwater .. Tern Sparrow-Hawk Spatula clypeata Spoonbill... .. Spotted Crake or Dusky Redshank a Eagle Flycatcher Squacco Heron Sguatarola helvetica Starling .. .. .. Steller’s Eider ; Stercorarius crepidatus.. parasiticus pomatorhinus *Sterna ancestheta cantiaca .. dougalli .. Jiuviatilis Suliginosa macrura.. minuta .. Stock-Dove Stonechat.. Stone Curlew Storm Petrel .. . Strepsilas interpres Strix flammea Sturnus vulgaris Sula bassana Surf-Scoter Surnia funerea ulula Swallow Swift .. Vol. page 1. 227 i 29 1 33 i 32 3 iii 41 ii 57 iv 152 vi 192 v 104 iii 83 iii = 83 i 117 i 57 i 57 iii 168 vo oI21 li 189 iit 65 ii 185 iv 166 i 28 ii 61 i 165 ii 174 iv 200 ji 127 iv 72 iii 77 v 84 MO NSF iv 170 iv 174 iv 177 A 5 vi 236 vi 52 iii 124 iv 116 iv 46 v 28 v 162 ili 110 li 20 iv 20 v 81 di 132 iv 177 vi 119 Vi- 123 vi 116 Vi 55 vi 27 Vi 31 vi 37 vi 2 vi 42 vi 48 iv 208 L337 vo 56 vi 208 v 87 lii 59 li 132 iii 171 iv 189 lili So iii 80 ji 30 ili 4 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EaGs. Sylvia atricapilla .. cinerea .. Curruca .. hortensis nisorvia * orphea undata Syrnium aluco.. Syrrhaptes paradoxus a3 Tadorna casarca cornuta .. Tawny Owl Pipit Teal Temminck’s Stint Tengmalm’s Owl . Tetrao tetrix.. uvogallus *Tichodroma muraria Totanus calidris CANESCENS * JSlavipes.. Suscus .. &£lareola hAypoleucus ochropus * solitarius Tree-Creeper .. Pipit Sparrow.. *Tringa acuminata.. alpina .. canutus .. Suscicollis maculata... minuta .. * minutilla striata subarquata temmincki Troglodytes parvulus Tryngites rufescens Tufted Duck .. *Turdus atrigularis.. tliacus merula = micratorius .. MLUSICUS «. pilaris = sibiricus .. torquatus varius VISCLUOTUS Turnstone.. Turtle-Dove Turtur communis .. Twite Two- Barred Crossbill a Upupa epops Cria bruennichi grylle troile *Vanellus gregarius.. vulgaris .. Velvet-Scoter .. - Iv : wi Vol, partnerserse ts. tre tro Teo ts mee ory a¢e¢eqd dud me ae te ee mee 1 a een ene ie a pe ee PM ee ae wu atlas mina a - iii *Wall-Creeper .. *Water- ala Rail. Waxwing .. ‘ *Wedge- ‘Tailed Gull Wheatear .. ‘ Whimbrel.. Whinchat.. .. Whiskered Tern White, or Barn Owl .. .. *White-Billed Northern Diver Fronted Goose .. Stork .. Tailed Eagle Vol. page 1175 i 205 vo 25 ji 16 vi 59 i 29 v 175 1 3 vi 15 ili §9 vi 170 iv 58 iv 36 iii 118 INDEX OF BIRDS. Whitethroat .. .+ +s White’s Thrush White Wagtail_.. Winged Black ‘Tern. * Winged Lark Whooper Swan Wigeon_.. Willow- Warbler Wilson's Petrel Woodchat Shrike .. Woodcock.. ax Wood-Lark Pigeon .. Wood Saulipiper +. Warbler... -- Wren... «. ++ +8 Wryneck .. +. Nema sabinii .. «+ Yellow-Browed Warbler Yellow Bunting : *Yellowshank .. -- Yellow Wagtail .- . vi 249 . page INDEX OF EGG PLATES. INDEX TO THE Twenty-Four PLATES OF EGGS. 251 In consequence of the unavoidable delay in completing the plates of eggs, it was impossible to place every plate in the volume containing the corresponding birds. bound as issued, these plates will appear in the following order :— Plates i-iv, Vol. I.; v-viii, Vol. [I.; ix-x, Vol. III. Fig. Arctic Tern 436-437 Avocet «+ 40% Baillon’s Crake 382 Barn Owl .. .. .. .. 290 Bearded Reedling.. .. 68 Bittern ih 350 Blackbird .. .. 10-17 Blackcap .. .. - 38-41-64 Black Grouse .. ea B7L Guillemot 455-456 Headed Gull 440-442 Tailed Godwit 422-423 Tern vee 420-427 Throated Diver .. 466 Blue-Headed Wagtail .. 94 Tit’ es - 78-81 Brambling 156-157 Bullfinch .. 174-179 Buzzard 300-303 Capercaillie ++ 370 Carrion Crow .. .. 233-236 Chaffinch .. .. 148-155 Chiffchaff .. -49-51 Chough 214-215 Cirl Bunting 196-197 Coal-Tit .. .- 73°75 Common Eider 363 Down .. -- + 303A Common Gull 443-444 Sandpiper 415-416 Common Sheld-Duck .. 353 Down a ++ 353A Common Snipe 405-408 Tern 434-435 Coot. . .. 385 Cormorant «345 Corn-Bunting .. 181-187 Crake 379-380 Crested Tit ws OR Crossbill .. .- -- 180 Cuckoo—Chaffinch 284 Greenfinch 283 Hedge Accentor 276-279 Jginnet .. «a «x 285, Pied Wagtail 281-282 Robin 269-271 Rock Pipit .. .. 280 Sedge Warbler 273-275 Pl. Vol xVill WWWWWWWWNHONNWU DM BOD BPHNNHNNUW WNNKHADHAANHRP HOH AD Fig. Pl. Vol Cuckoo—Sky-Lark 289 viii 3 Whitethroat .. 272 viii 3 Yellow Bunting 286-288 viii 3 Curlew .. .. . 424 xix 6 Dartford Warbler .. 45 ii 1 Dipper... .. es ++ 70 ii 1 Dotterel -- 390 xvii 5 Dunlin 409-41I xvili 5 Fork-Tailed Petrel 474 xxiv 6 Fulmar 471-472 xxiv 6 Gadwall .. .. .. .- 355 xiv 4 Down .. .. «2 «+3554 XIV Gannet.. .. .. 347 xili 3 Garden Warbler - 42-44 ti I Garganey .. .. .«. 359 xv 4 Down «1 2: vs «+ 359A KV Golden-Crested Wren ..46-48 ii I Eagle 305-306 x 3 Oriole ». 103 iii 1 Plover 395-396 xvil 5 Goldfinch .. 129-130 iv 2 Goosander .. 364 xV 4 Down .. .. -- 364A XV Gos-Hawk e393 ee Od ix 3 Grasshopper Warbler .. 63 ii 1 Great Auk .. 463-464 xxiii 6 Black-Backed Gull 446 xx 6 Bustard .. .. .. 387 xvil 5 Crested Grebe 468 xxiv 6 Skua we 48 - 450 xuT 6 Spotted Woodpecker 264 viii 3 Tit ae a5 ss nn,le¥2 ji 1 Greenfifch 120-125 iv 2 Greenshaunk .. .. .- 421 xix 6 Green Woodpecker 266 viii 3 Grey Lag-Goose 351 xiv 4 Wagtail .. ve 93 iii I Guillemot .. 457-462 xxil 6 Hawfinch .. 126-128 iv <2 Hedge-Sparrow . 65-67 iii Hen-Harrier 296-297 ix 3 Heron Ba Me .. 348 xiv 4 Herring Gull .. -- 445 xx 6 Hobby : 325-328 =xili 3 Honey- Buzzard 319-321 xi 3 Hoopoe .. 268 viii 3 Fig. Hooded Crow.. .. 237-240 House-Sparrow .. 132-143 Jackdaw .. .. .. 222-228 jay . se ee 216-217 Kentish Plover 393-394 Kestrel .. .. «331-339 Kingfisher te Sao he: 267 Kate aa x ge es SBTG31S Kittiwake Gull 448-449 Lapwing .... .. 397-398 Lesser Black-Backed Gull 447 Spotted Woodpecker 265 Whitethroat - -35°37 Linnet we, 8s 158-167 Little Bittern .. as 349) Grebe 469-470 Tern ae 438-439 Long-Eared Owl 291 Tailed Tit 69 Magpie .... .. 218-221 Mallard, or Wild Duck 354 Down par hins 3544 Manx Shearwater .. 473 Marsh-Harrier 294-295 it. sao Ae Ss es 7GF7Y Warbler +. «58-60 Martin .. .. «. «. IIZ Meadow-Pipit .. -» IOI Merlin is. 29-330 Missel Thrush iy Montagu’s Harrier 298-299 Moor-Hen 384-385 Mute Swan + 352 Nightingale + 29-31 Nightjar : 257-262 Nuthatch .. .. - 83-84 Osprey o-+ +: 340-344 Oyster Catcher 399-400 Partridge .. sa 375 Peregrine .. 322-324 Pheasant .. .. 374 Pied Flycatcher IIo Wagtail .. gI xi-xili, Vol. iv.; xiv-xviiii, Vol. V.; xix-xxiv. Vol. VI. If the parts of the subscription edition have been NN HE DAR NRW AN AW nnn H PUWHWHNHHWDH PN HO wenn nw 252 BRITISH Fig. Pl. Vol Pintail ats su) ae 357 xV 4 Down 357A XV Pochard 361 xv 4 Down i 301A Xv Ptarmigan 373. xvi «5 Pulin.. 465 xxiv 6 Quail .. ©...) 6.) 377-378 = xvi 5 Raven a 229-232 «vii «2 Razorbill . 452-454 xxl 6 Red- Backed Shrike 104-108 iii I Redbreast.. . s 2125228 iI Red-Breasted Merganser 365 xv 4 Down .. -¢ «23654 x¥ Red Grouse .. 372, xvi 5 Legged Partridge 216 xvi 5 Necked Phalarope 402 xviii 5 Redpole ‘ 168-171 v2 Redshank . 419-420 xviii 5 Redstart .. -. 24 iI Red-Throated Diver 467 xxiv 6 Reed-Bunting .. 198-206 vi 2 Warbler 56-57 iT Richardson’s Skua - 451 xxi 6 Ringed Plover 391-392 xvii 5 Ring Ouzel 18-19 ieee Rock Dove - 368 xvi 5 Pipit .. .. .. Io2 iii 1 BIRDS WITH THEIR NESTS AND Ecas. Rook .. er Roseate Tern .. Ruff Sand-Martin Sandwich Tern Sedge-Warbler Shag Shork Wared Owl is Shoveler Down Siskin Sky-Lark . Snow- Bunting Song Thrush .. Sparrow- -Hawk Spotted-Crake Ey eeienee Starling Stock Dove Stonechat.. Stone Curlew .. | Storm Petrel .. ' Swallow ' Swift .. Tawny Owl Teal.. ‘i Down Fie 241-244 432-433 412-414 118-119 428-431 . 61-62 346 292 356 ++ 350A vic U3, 245-254 207-209 2. 5-9 308-312 -s 381 III-113 210-213 367 + 21-22 388-389 ++ 475 II4-116 +. 256 293 iin 350 + 358A FINIS. Pl. Vol vii xix xvili nan 4 Lat it 5 PwWWHAN i < sy PW WN ANHNNHUNWBHDNHWND Tree Creeper .. Pipit Sparrow Tufted Duck .. Down Turtle Dove Twite .. Water-Rail Wheatear .. Whimbrel . Whinchat . White- Tailed Eagle Whitethroat.. White Wagtail Wigeon , Down ce Willow-Warbler Woodchat Shrike .. Woodcock Wood-Lark Pigeon Sandpiper Warbler Wren... .. .. Wryneck .. Yellow Bunting Wagtail .. BRUMBY AND CLARKE, LTD., PRINTERS, HULL AND LONDON. 403-404 255 366 at7- -418 Pl. Vol iii 1 iii I iv 2 xv 4 xv xvi 5 v2 xvii 5 5 SO xix 6 eg x 3 ii I iii I xv 4 KV Fo ames dil. I xviii 5 vili 3 xvi 5 xviii 5 ii I iii I vili 3 2 H I here tee ae tah GMA ee OD ed ae ae Sapp PehESReseeLe: epicniertst : Sorters oth See ee Sot Coe Sa Sa OV man Rae onan prs ee ees wgiatcs ane Agate a. pac eed: S54 6S AS ; res i mein meee RAL — Te ae a en ra a peony awe TL ee yrereaen tee Oetker cae remenenw cane sea ue raecaseren tener eprer at reise reeset yet coareureregstct vir Sra SE ica seeesb ots ee etre te pete, 4A