It nests on the bare shingle, the nests being usually placed quite close to each other. Two or three eggs of a pale stone colour, spotted and blotched with reddish brown and black, form the clutch. Like all Terns, this bird is a powerful flier, and seizes the fish on which it feeds by plunging into the water with considerable force. Its note is a loud and harsh “kirhitt,” which may be heard some way off and often enables this species to be detected when among other Terns. It leaves our shores as soon as the young are well on the wing, and though a few stragglers may occur on the coast during the autumn it is by no means a common species, and needs all the protection it can get, if it is to remain an annual summer visitor to our shores. The adult male in summer has the crown of the head black; the rest of the upper parts pearl grey; rump, tail, and under parts white, the breast being suffused with a delicate rose tint which soon fades after death. Bill black with a yellow tip. Legs black. The female is similar but slightly smaller. In autumn the back of the head and nape are white, the latter being lightly mottled. In the young the head is white mottled with black. The feathers of the back and wing coverts have black and brownish crescentic markings and white tips. The tail is also marked with angular lines of black, the outer feather being almost entirely greyish. Length 16 in.; bill 2·5 in.; wing 12 in. THE ROSEATE TERN Sterna dougalli, Montagu This Tern still nests in small numbers round our shores, but it is extremely scarce and somewhat erratic in its choice of breeding-quarters, which often vary from year to year. It arrives very late in May, and leaves our shores as soon as the young can fly, so that it is not often met with on migration. It breeds sparingly on the coast of France, but its chief breeding-quarters are along the Atlantic coast of the United States. In general habits it resembles its congeners, but it is an exclusively sea Tern, obtaining most of its food some distance out at sea. In plumage it is almost indistinguishable from the two following species, but it may be recognised at all ages by the white inner margins to the primaries reaching the tip and even some little way up the outer web. The bill in the breeding season is black; legs and feet red. Length 15·5 in.; wing 9 in. THE COMMON TERN Sterna fluviatilis, Naumann This species arrives in May and nests in colonies round the whole of the coast as well as on some inland waters. In England it is the commonest Tern, but in Scotland and Ireland the Arctic Tern is almost if not quite as numerous, and both species may often be found nesting on the same island or beach. Its food consists of small fish and crustacea, which it catches after the manner of all Terns by dropping down on them with closed wings from a moderate height.