SOOTY TERN. 43 



of its greater extent of wing, being full three inches wider than the 

 Lesser Tern; and also making its appearance after the others have 

 gone off. 



The Short-tailed Tern measures eight inches and a half, from the 

 point of the bill to the tip of the tail, and twenty-three inches in extent ; 

 the bill is an inch and a quarter in length, sharp pointed, and of a deep 

 black color ; a patch of bliick covers the crown, auriculars, spot before 

 the eye, and hind-head ; the forehead, eyelids, sides of the neck, passing 

 quite round below the hind-head, and whole lower parts, are pure white ; 

 the back is dark ash, each feather broadly tipped with brown ; the wings 

 a dark lead color, extending an inch and a half beyond the tail, which 

 is also of the same tint, and slightly forked ; shoulders of the wing 

 brownish ash ; legs and webbed feet tawny. It had a sharp shrill cry 

 when wounded and taken. 



This is probably the Brown Tern mentioned by Willoughby, of which 

 so many imperfect accounts have already been given. The figure in the 

 plate, like those which accompany it, is reduced to one-half the size of 

 Ufe. 



Species V. STERNA FULIGINOSA. 



SOOTY TERN. 



[Plate LXXII. Tig. 7.] 



Le Mirondelle de Mer & grande enverguer, Burr, vili., p. 345. — Egg-bird, Forst. 

 Voy. p. 113. — Noddy, Damp. Voy. iii., p. 142. — Arct. Zool. No. 447. — Lath. Syn. 

 III., p. 352.* 



This bird has been long known to navigators, as its appearance at sea 

 usually indicates the vicinity of land ; instances, however, have occurred 

 in which they have been met with one hundred leagues from shore.f 

 The species is widely dispersed over the various shores of the ocean. 

 They were seen by Dampier in New Holland ; are in prodigious numbers 

 in the Island of Ascension ; and in Christmas Island are said to lay, in 

 December, one egg on the ground, the egg is yellowish, with brown and 

 violet spots.J In passing along the northern shores of Cuba and the 

 coast of Florida and Georgia, in the month of July, I observed this 

 species very numerous and noisy, dashing down headlong after small fish. 

 I shot and dissected several, and found their stomachs uniformly filled 



* Sterna fuliginosa, Gmel. Syst. i., p. 605, — Ind. Orn. p. 804, No. 4. Gen. Syn. 

 III., p. 352, No. 4. 

 t Cook, Voy. I., p. 275. J Turton. 



