s* BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Family LARlDsE. Subfamily S TERNINSE. 



SOOTY TERN. 



Sterna fu/iginosa, GMEL. 



THIS species has only slender claims to be included in the British avi-fauna. 

 There are but three recorded genuine occurrences of the bird in our 

 islands. The first was shot at Tutbury, near Burton-on-Trent, in 1852 ; the second 

 near Wallingford, in Berkshire, in 1869, and the third, an adult, was caught alive 

 about three miles from Bath, on the 4th or 5th October, 1885, " the weather," 

 according to Mr. A. C. Foot, by whom the bird was sent to Mr. Howard Saunders, 

 " being windy and the floods extending over the meadows." 



On the continent of Europe it has been noted on two or three occasions at 

 most, so that altogether it is an extremely rare visitor to the north-western parts 

 of the eastern hemisphere. It is mainly an inter- and juxta-tropical species, with 

 a special affection for isolated islands and reefs ; but it stretches northward on 

 the eastern side of America as far as the Florida Keys, where it breeds in large 

 numbers ; and it has been taken as high as the latitude of Massachussets. It is 

 almost unknown on the South American side of the Pacific. It extends beyond 

 the tropics in both directions along the African, Asian and Australasian coasts. 



The Sooty Tern is known under the name of " The Wideawake," and on the 

 island of Ascension, where it nests in enormous numbers, its breeding places have 

 long been celebrated under the designation of " Wideawake Fairs." Similar large 

 colonies of this bird in the Tortugas have been described by Andubon. " No 

 description," as Captain Sperling, speaking of the first named locality, says " can 

 give an adequate idea of the effect produced by the thousands upon thousands 

 of these wild sea-birds floating and screaming over this arid cinder-bed, the eggs 

 and young scattered so thickly on the ground that in some instances it was 

 impossible to avoid crushing them and the bleached bones of dead birds 

 distributed in all directions." 



According to Mr. Penrose, who described a collection brought to England by 

 Dr. Gill, from Ascension, there are three "fairs" on the island itself, one very 

 much larger than the others. The principal "fair" "was just at about its full 

 height at the end of December, and had been going on for about six weeks before 



