1875.) MR. W. V. LEGGE ON THE BIRDS OF CEYLON. 377 
part of hind neck white ; lower part, interscapular region, scapulars, 
and wing-coverts dark olivaceous green, tipped fulvous; back buff, 
with black velvety bars; tail barred black and buff; tips of quill- 
feathers white ; forehead and all beneath white ; legs and feet green- 
ish olive, toes above plumbeous. 
A full-plumaged nestling, shot on the 14th July, had attained a 
length of 13-22inches ; wing 8; tarsus 4:1; hind toe and claw 1°7 ; 
bill at front 2°2: iris salmon-colour, slightly mottled dark ; bill black- 
ish olive, dusky at base of upper mandible, and yellowish beneath ; 
tibia and tarsi brownish yellow, dusky bluish grey. at joints ; feet and 
sides of tarsi brown; crown and nape brown, fading on the hind neck 
into light brown, and deepening into blackish brown on the intersca- 
pular region and scapulars, where the feathers are edged with buff ; 
primaries as in adult ; wing-coverts and tertiaries conspicuously mar- 
gined with buff. 
4. STERNULA SINENSIS, Gmel. 
Great numbers of this Tern, as identified for me by Mr. Howard 
Saunders, breed on the foreshores of the Léways. As far as I am 
able to judge without examples from other parts of the world for 
comparison, I procured three races of Sternula on the breeding- 
grounds. 
They may be classed as under :— 
a. With one blackish primary, from 7°25 to 6°9 inches in length, 
the bill long and not exceeding 1:3; vent and shorter under tail- 
coverts light iron-grey ; feet clear orange. 
6. With two blackish primaries, from 72 to 6 8 inches in length ; 
bill slightly shorter than a, not exceeding 1:2, and with the gonys 
deeper and the under tail-coverts pure white ; feet smaller than a, 
those of the females dusky orange. 
e*, With black quills and shafts and finely attenuated bill, dusky 
orange with black tip, and legs and feet yellowish brown. 
It seems reasonable to suppose that 6 is very closely allied to, 
but a different species from, a, which Mr. Saunders identifies as S. 
sinensis, although its distinctive characteristics are rather trivial. 
The note of S. stmensis was a peculiar Paleornis-like pipe, while that 
of the other variety was a harsh Tern-like cry. A further reason 
for the existence of two species would be the great variety in size 
and character of marking displayed in many of the eggs which I 
took. The nests were found on the perfectly level earthy-sand fore- 
shore, and consisted of the smallest perceptible hollows, appearing as 
if they were stamped out by the bird’s feet, and containing no foun- 
dation or bottom of any other substance than the bare earth. They 
were as a rule a long distance from the water, and were never closer 
to each other than 10 or 12 feet, and very seldom as near as this. 
* An example of this type, now in the possession of Mr. Howard Saunders, 
and the only one procured, corresponds mainly with a bird shot at Colombo in 
December 1869 and identified by Lord Walden as S. minwta, the latter differing 
in its black bill and brownish red feet. A reddish line seems to be a mark of 
the winter dress in some Terns, those of Hydrochelidon leucopareia being quite 
red in winter against reddish black in summer. 
