SMALLER SOOTY TERN. 3 1 



Characters. — This species is easily recognised from all the 

 other British Terns, except S. fuliguiosa, by its white forehead 

 and black streak across the lores. The upper surface is sooty- 

 black, inclutling the rump, and the mantle is lighter, umber- 

 brown or ashy-grey, contrasting with the black head. So 

 different in style of plumage are the Sooty Terns that tb.eyhave 

 been placed by many authors in a separate genus — Haliplana — 

 and the uniform sooty colour of the young bird, only relieved 

 by white or rufous tips to the feathers, is quite peculiar among 

 the true Terns. Notwithstanding these differences, however, 

 Mr. Saunders has come to the conclusion that the Sooty Terns 

 cannot be separated structurally and generically from Sterna. 



Ra.ng'e in Great Britain. — The present species has occurred in 

 England only on one occasion, when a specimen was captured 

 in September, 1875, on one of the lightships at the mouth of 

 the Thames. The evidence of the occurrence of this example, 

 which is now in the collection of Mr. Edward Bidwell, appears 

 to be fairly conclusive, as is admitted by Mr. Saunders, who has 

 himself investigated the circumstances. 



Range Outside the British Islands. — The following is the distribu- 

 tion allotted to the species by Mr. Saunders in the "Catalogue 

 of Birds": — "Inter-tropical and juxta-tropical seas — Gulf of 

 Mexico and West Indies ; West Africa, Lower Red Sea, East 

 Africa, Madagascar, and Mascarene Islands and Indian Ocean 

 generally ; Moluccas, China Sea up to Japan, Pelew Islands, 

 New Guinea, Northern Australia, the Fiji, Tonga, EUice, and 

 Phoenix groups. In the Low Islands and the Sandwich Islands 

 the representative species appears to be S. liuiataP 



Habits. — These are doubtless similar to those of the Sooty 

 Tern in many respects, but Gilbert remarks that on Hout- 

 mann's Abrolhos in Western Australia, he found it breeding, 

 and that the species differed from its allies, "inasmuch as, 

 instead of being gregarious, each pair remains solitary, and its 

 single egg is deposited in the fissure of a rock close to the 

 v/ater's edge without any nest or flooring." 



Nest. — None, the single egg being deposited in the holes of 

 the loose friable coral sandstone, according to Macgillivray, who 

 met with the species on the islands of Torres Straits. 



