324 LARID.E. 



of this bird make their appearance on shore after high winds, and 

 this is the Tern, as Hume notices, that commonly alights on 

 ships to roost at night. It feeds on vAhatever can be picked up 

 from the sea, chiefly small fish and crustaceans. Hume, in 

 February, found numerous rotten and addled eggs and dried 

 carcases of this bird on the Yingorla Rocks, showing that it must 

 have bred there in great numbers in the monsoon. It lays 

 usually a single whitish, rather finely spotted egg, sometimes two, 

 measuring about T72 by 1'2, and makes a small hollow for its 

 nest amongst grass. 



151 4. Sterna fuliginosa. The Sooty Tern. 



Sterna fuliginosa, Gm. Syst. Nat. i p. 605 (1788) ; Legye< S. F. iii, 

 p. 378 ; Hume, S. F. iv, p. 477 ; id. Cat. no. 992 bis ; Legye, Birds 

 Ceyl. p. 1036 ; Butler, S. F. ix, p. 441 ; Oates, S. F. x, p. 247 ; id. 

 B. B. ii, p. 432 ; Barnes, Birds Bom. p. 433 ; Oates in Hume's N. 

 $ E. 2nd ed. iii, p. 303 ; Sounders, Cat. B. M. xxv, p. 106. 



Onychoprion fuliginosa, Hume, S. F. i, p. 440. 



Coloration very similar to that of S. ancestheta, but much darker ; 

 the white frontal band is broader, but the superciliary portion of 

 it only extends to just above the eye; the dark loral stripe is more 

 oblique it reaches the bill nearer to the gape, and extends above 

 the eye. The upper surface is sooty black, breast and throat 

 white, abdomen aud lower tail-coverts more or less suffused with 

 grey. 



In winter the crown and lores are speckled with white. Young 

 birds are sooty brown throughout, paler below ; lower abdomen 

 whitish ; feathers of the upper parts with white tips, which are 

 broadest on the scapulars and tertiaries. 



Bill, legs, and feet black, or blackish with a dull purplish tinge ; 

 irides deep brown (Hume). 



Length 17 ; tail 6-5 to 7'5, depth of fork 3'5 to 4-5 ; wing 11-5 ; 

 tarsus *9 ; bill from gape 2-3. 



Distribution. Tropical and subtropical seas. This Tern is 

 : met with occasionally on the Indian coasts, and breeds on the 

 Laccadives. 



Habits, <$fc. This is perhaps even more an ocean-bird than S. an- 

 cestheta, and is known to sailors as the " Wide-awake." It feeds on 

 fish, cephalopods, and Crustacea picked up from the sea, and it breeds 

 on oceanic islands, one of its most famous breeding-places being that 

 known as " Wide-awake Fair," on the island of Ascension. It is 

 said by some observers to lay a single egg, but Hume found two 

 or three in each nest on Cherbaniani Reef, in the Laccadives, where 

 the Sooty Terns were breeding in great numbers in February, and 

 were found to feed their young entirely on small cephalopods of 

 the genus Sepiola. The eggs vary much, but are usually whitish 

 with numerous red-brown spots, and measure about 1-94 by T34. 



