LARID^. 



65: 



THE SOOTY TERN. 

 Sterna fuliginosa, J. F. Gmelin. 



The specimen figured is said to liave been shot in October 1852 

 at Tutbury, near Burton-on-Trent, and having been purchased by 

 Mr. H. W. DesvcEux, of Drakelow Hall, it was exhibited by Yarrell 

 at a meeting of the Linnean Society in February 1853. Mr. J. E. 

 Harting has stated in ' The Field ' that he examined in the flesh an 

 example killed on June 21st 1869, near Wallingford in Berkshire; 

 while Mr. A. C. Foot of Bath sent me an adult, with the information 

 that it was caught alive, after wet and windy weather, about three 

 miles from that city, on October 4th or 5th 1885, and was seen in 

 the flesh by the late Rev. Leonard Blomefield as well as by the 

 Librarian of the Museum. Other birds recorded by this name 

 have proved to be Black Terns. 



On the Continent, this species has been noticed as a wanderer 

 on three occasions. Naumann states that one was obtained near 

 Magdeburg ; Degland and Gerbe mention an adult male, now in 

 the Lille Museum, taken in an exhausted state near Verdun, on 

 June 15th 1854; and a third, now in the Museum at Florence, 

 was captured on October 28th 1862 in Piedmont, in a trout-net. 



The Sooty Tern has been known to occur about a dozen times 

 as far north as the New England States, and it occasionally visits 

 the Bermudas ; but it is not found in any numbers on the 

 American sea-board above Florida and the Bahamas, though south- 

 ward it is generally distributed throughout the West Indies, 

 especially on the low islands known as ' Cays.' In the Pacific 



