Volume 40, Plate XXII / Ornithology (Birds)

Black & Lesser Terns

Sterna nigra & minuta

• The Lesser Tern. A beautiful and graceful little tern, in summer black on the forehead, crown, and nape, grey above, white below, with black bill, legs, and feet, measuring fifteen to sixteen inches. Generally distributed in suitable localities around England and southern Scotland, it breeds in a slight hollow on the shingly beach without cover, hovers and stoops at intruders though less bold than others, and leaves the coast soon after incubation.
• The Black Tern. An inland-breeding tern frequenting lakes and extensive marshes and largely insectivorous in the breeding season, the head and neck black shading to blackish grey below, the upper parts deep bluish grey, with deeply cut webs and comparatively long claws. In England it resorts chiefly to the fenny districts of Norfolk, Lincoln, and Cambridgeshire, some of which are vanishing, and ranges through marshy Europe, north-east Asia, and America, the winter dress whitening the crown and neck.