30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM [vol.82 



On Beata Island, Dominican Republic, from May 10 to 15 we 

 found this handsome tern in fair numbers about the saUne lagoons 

 and along the coast. On May 12 we located a small breeding colony 

 nesting on the narrow ledges formed by the tops of the earth-filled 

 dikes that divided the lagoons at the salt works into sections. We 

 collected three sets of two eggs each, and found all to be fresh. The 

 eggs were deposited on packed earth, and each set was surrounded 

 by a ring of small moUuscan shells. Numerous single eggs were 

 scattered about, but in no case was the ring of shells observed about 

 them, indicating possibly that this treatmient was accorded only to 

 complete sets. Three skins were prepared on this day. 



The eggs taken vary in ground color from lighter than pale olive- 

 buff to a warm olive-buff, spotted somewhat irregularly over the 

 entire surface with bone brown and natal brown, these becoming 

 various shades of bluish slate where overlaid by calcareous deposits 

 of the shell. In some eggs the spots are fine and in others rather 

 bold and heavy. In one egg the slaty markings predominate. Fol- 

 lowing are measurements in millimeters of the three sets obtained: 

 28.5 by 21.9, 28.7 by 22.2; 30.3 by 22.5, 30.8 by 22.5; 32 by 23.2, 

 32.8 by 23.8. 



THALASSEUS MAXIMUS MAXIMUS {Boddaert) 



Royal Tern 



Sterna maxima Boddaert, Table Planches Enl., 1783, p. 58 (Cayenne). 



At Terrier Rouge, Haiti, we saw one royal tern near the Fond 

 Blanc plantation house on March 29 and another near the entrance 

 to Fort Liberte Bay on the same day. 



This tern was recorded at Barahona on May 9, and as we came 

 out of harbor in our tiny sloop after dark that evening a white spot 

 on a buoy, that we passed within a few meters, in the light of a flash- 

 light became one of these terns asleep. The birds were seen regularly 

 the following day in passage to Beata Island, and at the latter place 

 were seen daily along the beach. An adult male taken on May 11 

 was in full breeding dress. On our return on May 16 this species 

 was recorded as far as Puerto Caiman below Enriquillo. 



It is of interest to report that a royal tern banded as a chick at 

 Egg Bank, Helena Sound, Beaufort County, S.C, on July 18, 1930, 

 by E. Milby Burton was taken subsequently on a beach near Enri- 

 quillo, Dominican Republic, on March 13, 1931. An account of this 

 capture published in the newspaper La Opinion, of Santo Domingo 

 City, was reported to the Biological Survey in Washington by George 

 H. Hamor, of Barahona. Another banded by Mr. Burton at Cape 



