300 LARID^E. 



Sterna anaestheta, Scop. The Panayan Tern. 



Onychoprion anasthaetus (Scop.}, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 844. 

 Sterna aneetheta (Scop.), Hume, Cat. no. 992. 



When I visited the Vingorla rocks on the 4th February, 1875, I 

 found all the higher parts more or less thickly clothed with coarse 

 dry shaggy grass, which sprouted out of every nook and cranny, 

 and had, moreover, established itself over every little plateau or 

 tiny table-ground where the decay of the rock and the guano of 

 the numerous sea-birds that frequent these rocks at the breeding- 

 season had spread a thin sheet of mould. 



Everywhere in amongst this grass were thousands of addled 

 and rotten eggs, mostly broken and weather-beaten, but a very 

 few of the smaller of the two kinds retaining their original colours 

 tolerably well. What species the large eggs belonged to I cannot 

 guess; there were very few of them, and all were much broken. 

 They clearly belonged to some Gull, and were, I think, larger than 

 those of Sterna bergii which I have from Astolah. In regard to the 

 smaller species there could be no doubt, scores of dried-up mum- 

 mies of the young birds and several nearly perfect dried-up skins 

 of old ones of our present species lay about. I dare say I saw the 

 remains of more than 100 young and old ones, and all belonging 

 to this same species, not a single remain did I find of any other 

 species ; I have therefore not the smallest doubt that the few eggs 

 which I was able to bring away also belonged to this species. 



Colonel E. A. Butler received eggs of this species from the Persian 

 Gulf. He says : "A few eggs of the Panayan Tern (at least said 

 to belong to this species) were taken for me by some fishermen 

 about the 8th June, 1878. They were found on mud banks on the 

 island of Tungistan, about 40 miles E. of Bush ire, in the Persian 

 Gulf, and the nests, which contained from two to four eggs (consider- 

 ably incubated) each, were simply round depressions in the ground 

 scratched out by the old birds. The eggs vary much in ground- 

 colour and markings, some of them reminding one of the eggs of 

 Sterna saundersi. I have no doubt about these eggs, as a skin of 

 S. ancestheta was forwarded with them, and a note saying that 

 there were no other Terns breeding on the island at the time they 

 were taken." 



He adds a couple of notes : " A quantity of eggs taken on an 

 island, 16. miles S. of Bushire, on the 13th July, 1878. The nest 

 consisted of a slight depression in the sand just above high water- 

 mark. Seldom more than one egg in a nest, sometimes two but 

 never more. 



" Lays but one single egg, very similar to the egg of S. albigena 



dish-brown towards the edges ; many of the smaller spots are surrounded by a 

 reddish-brown nimbus. The secondary markings the usual pale inky grey, a 

 few in number and inconspicuous. Occasionally eggs are met with exhibiting 

 scarcely any markings, a single blotch 0-2 in diameter, 20 or 30 tiny specks, and 

 perhaps half a dozen tiny purplish-grey subsurface-looking spots. 



The eggs vary from 1*91 to 2'35 in length, and from 1-38 to T5 in breadth. 



