316 LARID.E. 



less common in the south of the Peninsula, and of doubtful occur- 

 rence in Ceylon. This Tern is also found throughout the Malay 

 Peninsula as far as Singapore. 



Habits, c. Though essentially a river Tern, occurring singly or 

 in small parties about rivers and estuaries, this handsome Indian 

 Tern is often met with beating over tanks and even marshes, 

 especially if they are in the neighbourhood of rivers. It breeds in 

 March, April, and May, and lays 3 (sometimes 4) eggs in a small 

 unlined depression on a sandbank. Hundreds of nests sometimes 

 occurs on one sandbank, and other Terns, Skimmers, and Glareola 

 breed about the same time in siiniluY places. The eggs vary from 

 pale greenish grey to butf, spotted and blotched in the usual 

 manner with dark broxvn and pale inky purple, and they measure 

 on an average 1'65 by 1'25. The place where these or any Terns 

 are breeding may generally be recognized by the way in which the 

 birds wheel about overhead with their peculiar cry when anyone 

 is near their nests. 



1504. Sterna melanogaster. The Black-bellied Tern. 



Sterna melanogaster, Temm. PL Col pi. 434 (1832) ; Blyt.h $ Wald. 

 Birds Burm. p. 163 ; Godw.-Aust. J. A. S. B. xlv, pt. 2, p. 85 ; 

 xlvii, pt. 2, p. '2'2 ; Hume $ Dav. S. F. vi, p. 492 ; Dav. 8f Wend. 

 S. F. vii, p. 93 ; Ball, ibid. p. 233 ; Cripps, ibid. p. 314 ; Hume, 

 Cat. no. 987 ; Doiff, S. F. viii, p. 372 ; Leyge, Birds Ce.yl. p. 1006 ; 

 Butter, S. F. ix, p. 440; Reid, S. F. x, 'p. 87; Gates, B. B. ii, 

 p. 424 ; Barnes, Birds Bom. p. 429; Hume, S. F. x, p. 419; xi, 

 p. 350 ; Gates in Hume's N. fy E. 2nd ed. iii, p. 310 ; Saunders, 

 Cat. B. M. xxv, p. 43. 



Sterna javanica, Horsf. Res. Java (1824) (deser. nulla), nee Tr.Linn. 

 Soc. "xiii, p. 198 (1821) ; Bh/th, Cat. p. 292 ; Jerdon, B. I. iii, 

 p. 840 ; Bulger, Ibis, 1869, p. 170 ; Blanf. J. A. S. B. xl, pt. 2, 

 p. 277 ; Hume, S. F. i, p. 2^2 ; Adam, S. F. ii, p. 339 ; Wardl.- 

 Rams. Ibis, 1877, p. 472. 



Sternula minuta et S. jerdoni, Beavan, Ibis, 1868, p. 403. 



Pelodes javanica, Ball, S. F. ii, p. 440 ; Hume, 8. F. iii, p. 193. 



Coloration. Forehead, crown, and nape, with the sides of the 

 head down to the lower edge of the orbit, black ; very often the 

 extreme base of the forehead is white like the lores, cheeks, chin, 

 and throat ; upper parts from nape ashy grey, slightly tinged with 

 brown on the tertiaries, tips and parts of inner webs of primaries 

 generally dusky, outer webs frosted and whitish ; tail paler grey 

 than the back, outer webs of outermost rectrices white ; fore neck 

 pale grey, gradually passing into chocolate, then into black on the 

 breast ; abdomen and lower tail-coverts black ; wing-lining white. 



In winter the cap is white, streaked with black, aud the lower 

 parts white. According to Hume the winter plumage is not 

 assumed till December, and is only retained for about two months. 

 Very young birds have broad buff outer and blackish inner borders 

 to the feathers of the upper parts. 



Bill orange-yellow ; irides blackish brown ; legs and feet orange- 

 red. 



