16 BULLETIN 98, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
STERNA MELANAUCHEN MELANAUCHEN Temminck. 
Sterna melanauchen TemMmMiIncK, Nouv. Rec. Planch. Col. d’Oiseaux, vol. 5, livr. 
72, 1827, pl. 427 (coast of Celebes). 
One specimen, No. 171030, U.S.N.M., Pulo Kelong, August 30, 
1899. A few of the wing-quills are in molt. 
This example is identical with others from the Philippine Islands, 
Amoy (China), and Condore Island, and represents the typical form 
of the species, which was described from Celebes.1_ Birds collected by 
Doctor Abbott on the islands off the eastern coast of Africa, however, 
are easily separable subspecifically, and as they hitherto have escaped 
being named, all the synonyms of the species having been applied to 
the typical race, they may be known as 
STERNA MELANAUCHEN PROVIDA, new subspecies. 
Subspecific characters.—Similar to Sterna melanauchen melanau- 
chen, but upper parts lighter, the mantle of a paler gray; bill longer; 
wing, tail, and tarsus shorter. 
Description.—Type, adult male, No. 128756, U.S.N.M.; Provi- 
dence Bank, 300 mites southwest of the Seychelles, north of Mada- 
gascar; August 17, 1892; Dr. W. L. Abbott. Crown, hind neck, upper 
tail-coverts, tail, sides of head and neck, with entire lower parts, 
including under side of wings, pure white; a spot on lores, and a 
broad postocular band, broadening posteriorly and uniting with its 
fellow across the occiput, black; back, rump, scapulars, and exposed 
surface of wings, very pale pearl gray, this color showing faintly as a 
narrow stripe along the shafts on the inner webs of the outer few 
primaries, increasing on the rest of the wing-quills, which are tipped 
and margined broadly on inner webs with white; outer web of first 
(outermost) primary all but tip and extreme base blackish slate; 
bill and feet black. 
All the four specimens available present little individual variation 
in either color or size, except, as is, for obvious reasons, often the case 
with terns, in the length of the tail-feathers. There seems to be in 
this species no size difference of consequence between males and 
females. 
The geographic range of Sterna melanauchen provida comprises the 
islands of Aldabra and Providence, with doubtless the neighboring 
islands off the east African coast, north at least to the Seychelles. 
The range of the typical form, Sterna melanauchen melanauchen, 
extends probably from the Andaman Islands and Sumatra to the 
liu Kiu Islands, Polynesia, and Australia. 
The subjoined measurement tables will serve to show the size 
differences between the two races here defined. 
1Temminck, Nouv. Ree. Planch. Col. d’Oiseaux, vol. 5, livr. 72, 1827, pl. 427. 
