LARIDyE. 



655 



^' ^K\ ^^^ 



THE NODDY TERN. 



Angus stolidus (Linnaeus). 



Two examples of this pelagic species are recorded by Wm. 

 Thompson (Mag. Zool. & Bot. i. p. 549) as having been obtained 

 between the Tuskar Lighthouse and the Bay of Dublin, about the 

 year 1830, and one of these is in the Science and Art Museum of 

 the above capital. Some later reports of birds which were 

 " identified on the wing " as belonging to this species, either refer 

 to the Arctic Skua or are unworthy of serious consideration. Li 

 'The Zoologist,' for 1897, p. 510, is a record of a specimen said to 

 have been shot " on the Dee marshes about six years ago." 



The Noddy is, like the Sooty Tern, of general distribution 

 throughout the tropics ; some of its best known breeding-grounds 

 being in the Tortugas group off the coast of Florida, the Bahamas, 

 and many of the ' Cays ' of the West Indies, as well as on both sides 

 of Central America. Li the Atlantic it was found by the ' Chal- 

 lenger ' Expedition residing as far south as the storm-beaten Liac- 

 cessible Island, off Tristan da Cunha ; while in the Pacific it occurs 

 from Mexico to the Galapagos group. On the islands and coasts 

 of Polynesia and Australia it is found breeding in most of the 

 localities mentioned when treating of the Sooty Tern, though often 

 slightly apart from that species ; and it occurs throughout the inter- 

 tropical Asian and African seas, breeding in the Laccadives, the 

 islands of the Red Sea, St. Helena, Ascension, and in other places. 



Contrary to the habit of typical Terns, this and most of the 



