6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 98 



ANOtiS MINUTUS DIAMESUS (Heller and Snodgrass) 



Cocos Black Noddy Tern 



Micranous diamesus Heller and Snodgrass, Condor, vol. 3, 1901, p. 76 

 (Cocos Island). 



Two females and one young bird half grown were obtained. I agree 

 with Peters that there is no reason for placing this species in a genus 

 apart from the larger noddy. 



GYGIS ALBA CANDIDA (Gmelin) 



Cocos Fairy Tern 



Sterna Candida Gmelin, Syst. Nat., vol. 1, pt. 2, 1789, p. 607 (Christmas Is- 

 land, Pacific Ocean). 



Two males and one female, all adult, of this beautiful bird were 

 collected. The uniformity of the fairy tern in size over wide areas 

 of the Pacific Ocean is surprising. I can find no pertinent difference 

 between these skins from Clipperton Island and those from farther 

 west, and so follow Ridgway in calling them Candida, though I have 

 seen no specimens from Christmas Island, the type locality. It seems 

 probable that too many forms of the fairy tern have been recognized, 

 but this can be settled only with more material than is available here 

 at present. 



While Hartert 4 has called the peculiar Gygis microrhyncha of the 

 Marquesas Islands a geographic race of alba, in my opinion this is not 

 correct. There are at present eight skins of microrhyncha in the 

 National Museum, and I have seen additional material. All are 

 uniform in differing from alba from many localities in the decidedly 

 slender bill, a character in which specimens from other localities make 

 no approach. Their relationship has been confused because of the 

 uniform appearance of these terns throughout the world, and I 

 consider microrhyncha a full species, distinct from the wide ranging 

 alba. 



1 Nov. Zool., vol. 34, 1927, p. 20. 



