654 SOOTY TERN. 



it breeds from Lower California to Polynesia, where the coral 

 ' atolls ' and other islands offer numerous localities suited to 

 its habits ; there are many well-known stations on the reefs 

 which fringe Australia ; and the species can be traced through the 

 Eastern Archipelago to China and the south of Japan. It occurs 

 in Ceylon, the Laccadive Islands, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, 

 and through the Indian Ocean, by way of the Chagos group and the 

 Mascarene Islands, to Madagascar. Off the west of Africa a small 

 number frequent St. Helena, and immense colonies, which have 

 been repeatedly described as ' Wide-awake Fairs,' are found on that 

 great volcanic cinder-heap, the Island of Ascension. 



Normally each female only incubates a single egg at a time, but 

 in the same slight hollow in the soil which serves for a nest two 

 or even three eggs have been found. At Ascension these are 

 collected for eating, 200 dozen being sometimes picked up in 

 a morning. The colour is pinkish-cream or bluish-white, with 

 an endless variety of lavender and chestnut-red blotches ; the shell 

 being smooth, whereas in the egg of the Noddy — a bird often 

 found breeding in the same localities — the surface is of a rough 

 chalky nature : measurements 2 by i "5 in. As soon as the young 

 can fly, they and their parents go off to sea, where they feed upon 

 small fish and marine animals. According to some observers, this 

 species is crepuscular in its habits. 



The adult has the forehead, eye-brows, sides of the neck, 

 and entire under-parts white ; loral streaks, crown and nape 

 deep black ; remaining upper-parts chiefly sooty-black, the two 

 long outer tail-feathers being white on their outer webs ; bill, 

 legs and feet black. Length 17 in. (bill 2-1, tail 7-5), wing 11 75 in. 

 The young bird has the under-parts sooty-brown ; and the upper 

 surface of a darker hue, with whitish tips to nearly all the feathers 

 except the primaries. 



I have examined a specimen of the Smaller Sooty Tern, 6". 

 ancEStheta of Scopoli, which is said to have been captured on one of 

 the light-ships at the mouth of the Thames in September 1875 

 (Zool. 1S77, p. 213), but the evidence is slightly imperfect. This 

 inter-tropical species is browner on the upper-parts, has a longer 

 white stripe over the eye, a greyer tint on the neck, and less fully- 

 webbed feet than the above ; while the young bird has white under- 

 parts, even as a nestling. A third member of this group, S. h/nafa, 

 has a slate-grey back, and inhabits Oceania. 



