OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 131 



spicuous supercilium, that it is in some cases only by the pale 

 primrose yellow tint of the long eye streak of taivanus, as com- 

 pared with the greyish white one of young jtava, that the birds 

 can be readily separated. 



988 quat. — Sterna gouldi, Hume. 



The birds that I before entered as sinensis must, I find on 

 careful re-examination, be entered as gouldi. In whatever lio-ht 

 and in whatever position you hold the wing- of sinensis, the 

 shafts of the first three primaries (to speak only of these) are 

 on their upper surfaces, white, with, at most, a grey shade ; while 

 in gouldi {vide S. F., V., p. 326) the shaft of the first primary 

 is white or brownish white, and the second brown, often a dark 

 brown, and the third a grey, more or less tinged with brown ; 

 but to see this properly you should hold the wing with points of 

 the feathers downwards, and standing with your back to the lio-ht. 

 Thus held the difference between the color of the shafts in 

 sinensis and this race is very conspicuous. You may turn the 

 wing of sinensis as you please, the shafts are always white. On 

 the other hand in gouldi you can hold the wing in some lights so 

 that all the shafts look almost white or at any rate whitish. 



Recently Mr. Parker went, at my request, to Goalundo on 

 the Brahmaputra, during the breeding season of the little Tern, 

 and shot and preserved for me 19 specimens ; 18 of these are 

 gouldi, but one specimen, an adult breeding, has the shafts of 

 the two first primaries blackish brown, and has the coarse bill 

 of minuta, from English specimens of which I am quite unable 

 to separate it. 



In Sterna saundersi the shafts of the first three primaries are 

 blackish brown. I have numbers of specimens now of this 

 race, (I procured one myself this year on the Ganges at 

 Allahabad), and I find that it is very constantly characterised 

 by a slenderer bill than minuta or sinensis or gouldi. 



I have said nothing about the amount of the black on the tip 

 of the bill ; this is, I am convinced, an utterly valueless charac- 

 ter, for out of sixteen adult Sterna gouldi, shot all at the same 

 time and place, and all in breeding plumage, the amount of black 

 tipping varies from 0'4 to a mere speck on the tip of the upper 

 mandible, and in three specimens there is absolutely no black 

 at all. 



Again I have said nothing about the shade of grey of the 

 upper plumage, nor of the color of the tail, rump, and upper tail- 

 coverts. These vary in these birds according to age and sea- 

 son, and even according to individuals. Amongst these gouldi, 

 (as above, all shot at the same time, all adults, all breeding on 

 the same chur), some have the rump, upper tail-coverts and the 



