STERNID^E ANGUS 445 



Description. Adult. A broad white frontal band extending _to 

 the upper corner of the eye but not beyond ; crown, nape and ioreal 

 stripe from in front of the eye to the gape black, rest of the upper 

 surface dark brown; outer web of the outer tail-feathers white 

 contrasting with the inner web ; beneath, including the lower half 

 of the sides of the face, white, tinged with greyish on the abdomen 

 and under tail-coverts. 



Bill and feet black with a reddish tinge. Length 17 ; wing 

 11-5 ; tail 7*0 ; depth of fork 4 ; culmen 1-5 ; tarsus -9. In the 

 non-breeding dress the lores and crown are flecked with white. 



Distribution. The Sooty Tern is found throughout the tropical 

 and subtropical seas wherever suitable islands and reefs exist ; it 

 occasionally wanders as far north as Maine in North America and 

 even to England. In African seas this Tern is met with on Fer- 

 nando Po, Ascension and St. Helena on the Atlantic side and on 

 Zanzibar, Mafia and other islands in the Indian Ocean, so that 

 although never yet definitely recorded from within our limits it is 

 probable that it will be met with at some future time. This is the 

 Tern which breeds in such large numbers on the island of Ascension. 

 The places (three in number), where this takes place are known to 

 the inhabitants as " Wideawake Fairs" and the bird as the Wide- 

 awake bird ; here there are congregated thousands of Sooty Terns 

 all engaged in the duty of incubating their single egg; these are 

 white or faintly tinged with reddish and thickly or sparsely spotted 

 and blotched with reddish-purple with underlying fainter spots of 

 pale lilac. The eggs are somewhat rough in texture and measure 

 about 2-05 x 1/5. Good accounts of the " Wideawake fairs" will 

 be found in the Ibis (1868 p. 286 and 1879 p. 277) by Captain 

 Sperling and Dr. Penrose. There are eggs in the South African 

 Museum from Latham Island, 40 miles south of Zanzibar, as well as 

 from Ascension presented by Captain A. C. Gurney, E.N. 



Genus III. ANOUS. 



Type. 

 Anous, Stephens, Genl. Zool. xiii, pt. 1 p. 139 (1825)... A. stolidus. 



Bill long and strong and not much compressed, downcurved 

 towards the tip ; both mandibles equal ; nostril an elongated slit 

 in a groove, rather nearer the centre of the bill than in Sterna ; 

 wings as in Sterna ; tail long, more than half the length of the 



