654 SOOTY TERN. 
it breeds from Lower California to Polynesia, where the coral 
‘atolls’ and other islands offer numerous localities suited to 
its habits; there are many well-known stations on the reefs 
which fringe Australia ; and the species can be traced through the 
Eastern Archipelago to China and the south of Japan. It occurs 
in Ceylon, the Laccadive Islands, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, 
and through the Indian Ocean, by way of the Chagos group and the 
Mascarene Islands, to Madagascar. Off the west of Africa a small 
number frequent St. Helena, and immense colonies, which have 
been repeatedly described as ‘ Wide-awake Fairs,’ are found on that 
great volcanic cinder-heap, the Island of Ascension. 
Normally each female only incubates a single egg at a time, but 
in the same slight hollow in the soil which serves for a nest two 
or even three eggs have been found. At Ascension these are 
collected for eating, 200 dozen being sometimes picked up in 
a morning. ‘The colour is pinkish-cream or bluish-white, with 
an endless variety of lavender and chestnut-red blotches ; the shell 
being smooth, whereas in the egg of the Noddy—a bird often 
found breeding in the same localities—the surface is of a rough 
chalky nature: measurements 2 by 1°5 in. As soon as the young 
can fly, they and their parents go off to sea, where they feed upon 
small fish and marine animals. According to some observers, this 
species is crepuscular in its habits. 
The adult has the forehead, eye-brows, sides of the neck, 
and entire under-parts white; loral streaks, crown and nape 
deep black; remaining upper-parts chiefly sooty-black, the two 
long outer tail-feathers being white on their outer webs; bill, 
legs and feet black. Length 17 in. (bill 2:1, tail 7°5), wing 11°75 in. 
The young bird has the under-patts sooty-brown ; and the upper 
surface of a darker hue, with whitish tips to nearly all the feathers 
except the primaries. 
I have examined a specimen of the Smaller Sooty Tern, S. 
anestheta of Scopoli, which is said to have been captured on one of 
the light-ships at the mouth of the Thames in September 1875 
(Zool. 1877, p. 213), but the evidence is slightly imperfect. This 
inter-tropical species is browner on the upper-parts, has a longer 
white stripe over the eye, a greyer tint on the neck, and less fully- 
webbed feet than the above ; while the young bird has white under- 
parts, even as a nestling. A third member of this group, S. /uzata, 
has a slate-grey back, and inhabits Oceania. 
