- LARIDA. 653 
THE SOOTY TERN. 
STERNA FULIGINOSA, J. F. Gmelin. 
The specimen figured is said to have been shot in October 1852 
at Tutbury, near Burton-on-Trent, and having been purchased by 
Mr. H. W. Desvoeux, of Drakelow Hall, it was exhibited by Yarrell 
at a meeting of the Linnean Society in February 1853. Mr. J. E. 
Harting has stated in ‘ The Field’ that he examined in the flesh an 
example killed on June 21st 1869, near Wallingford in Berkshire ; 
while Mr. A. C. Foot of Bath sent me an adult, with the information 
that it was caught alive, after wet and windy weather, about three 
miles from that city, on October 4th or 5th 1885, and was seen in 
the flesh by the late Rev. Leonard Blomefield as well as by the 
Librarian of the Museum. Other birds recorded by this name 
have proved to be Black Terns. 
On the Continent, this species has been noticed as a wanderer 
on three occasions. Naumann states that one was obtained near 
Magdeburg ; Degland and Gerbe mention an adult male, now in 
the Lille Museum, taken in an exhausted state near Verdun, on 
June rsth 1854; and a third, now in the Museum at Florence, 
was captured on October 28th 1862 in Piedmont, in a trout-net. 
The Sooty Tern has been known to occur about a dozen times 
as far north as the New England States, and it occasionally visits 
the Bermudas; but it is not found in any numbers on the 
American sea-board above Florida and the Bahamas, though south- 
ward it is generally distributed throughout the West Indies, 
especially on the low islands known as ‘Cays.’ In the Pacific 
