3 I 2 CHARADRIIFORMES 



America ; >S^. lorata, with grey belly, to Peru and Chili ; ^S*. nereis, 

 with white lores, to Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia ; S. 

 halaenarum, with black forehead and base of bill, to Southern Africa. 



S. fuliginosa, S. anaesfheta, and S. lunata are the Sooty 

 Terns, so-called from their dark upper surface ; the second being 

 browner and the third greyer than the typical species, wherein 

 alone the young differ from the adults in having brown lower 

 parts instead of white. The forehead is white, the bill and feet 

 are black, while immature birds show whitish markings above. 

 These Terns frequent the tropics, but ;S'. lunata only occurs from 

 the Moluccas to Laysan, the Sandwich Islands, and elsewhere in 

 Polynesia. aS'. fuliginosa has been obtained three times in Eng- 

 land, occasionally on the Continent of Europe, and in America 

 northwards to Maine. The single egg, like that of the Noddy, 

 but with finer red, grey, and lilac markings, is laid on sand or flat 

 rocks ; descriptions of the colony, or " Wideawake Fair," on Ascen- 

 sion having been given by several writers.^ S. aleutica of Alaska, 

 Bering Sea, and Japan, with a slate-grey mantle, white forehead 

 and rump, connects the above with the next section. 



The remaining species, with white foreheads, are the large >S'. 

 lergii, ranging from East and Soutli-West Africa to Japan and 

 Polynesia, excluding New Zealand, and S. hernsteini of the Sey- 

 chelles, Eodriguez, Diego Garcia, and Halmahera, both of which 

 have elongated nape-feathers and a yellowish bill, but grey and 

 white rumps respectively. S. frontalis, of the New Zealand and 

 Australian Seas, has a black bill. 



Of large forms, with black foreheads, black feet, and length- 

 ened nuchal plumes, >S'. cantiaca, the Sandwich Tern, breeding 

 from Britain and the Mediterranean to the Caspian, and from 

 New England to Honduras and both coasts of Guatemala, pos- 

 sesses a black bill. It migrates to Cape Colony, Sind, and Brazil. 

 The large S. maxima, and the similar but smaller S. elegans, 

 have the beak red ; the former extending from about lat. 

 40° N. in America to Peru and Brazil, and in winter to West 

 Africa ; the latter from California to Chili. S. eurygnatha, found 

 from Venezuela to Patagonia, only differs in its yellow bill ; but 

 -S*. 7nedia, ranging from the Mediterranean and East Africa to 

 Australia, has the tail grey instead of white. In this section 

 the richly marked eggs have often a creamy ground. 



1 Cf. Sperling, Ibis, 1868, pp. 286-288 ; Colliugwood, Zoologist, 1867, pp. 980-983. 



