NOTES AND QUERIES. 398 



were dark brown, each feather being broadly -edged with buff. The 

 white forehead and cheeks and the broad white eyebrows showed up the 

 greyish-brown crown, and a streak of the same colour which extended 

 from the lores to behind each eye. — Chas. Oldham (Knutsford). 



Black Tern (Hydrochelidon nigra) in Cheshire. — On Sept. 6th 

 Mr. P. Brownsword and I watched a Black Tern for some time at Bud- 

 worth Mere, near Northwich. Now and then the bird would rest on 

 one or other of the posts which project above the water, but it- spent 

 most of its time flying in a buoyant, desultory fashion up and down the 

 mere, dropping diagonally at frequent intervals to snatch food from 

 the surface of the water, or just above it. It was a bird in immature 

 plumage, the forehead, collar, and entire under parts being white, the 

 mantle not uniformly slate-grey, but marked, especially along the 

 carpal joint, with grey of a darker shade. — Chas. Oldham (Knutsford). 



Occurrence of the Sooty Tern in Suffolk, — At the latter end of 

 March or beginning of April, 1900, Mr. J. Nunn and Mr. G. Mortimer, 

 jun., found a bird lying dead on the heathland between Thetford and 

 Brandon, in the parish of Santon Downham. The bird was found on 

 some bracken, about half a mile from the river Little Ouse and the 

 highway between Thetford and Brandon, and a quarter of a mile from 

 Thetford Warren, which is in the administrative county of Norfolk. 

 Mr. Nunn, who lives at Little Lodge Farm, sent the bird to Mr. F. 

 Rix, of Thetford, who stuffed it, and informed the owner it was a 

 " Biack Tern." It remained at the farmhouse until September of this 

 year, when Mr. W. A. Dutt, of Lowestoft, and the writer called and 

 saw the bird. Neither of us, though confident it was a rarity, was able 

 accurately to determine the species. I therefore took a written de- 

 scription of it, and on my return to Norwich quickly identified it as a 

 Sooty Tern (Sterna fuliginosa). This was subsequently confirmed by 

 Mr. T. Southwell. The bird is an adult, in good plumage, and well 

 stuffed. Mr. F. Bix, who stuffed it, informs me that the bird was 

 very decomposed when taken to him early in April, 1900. It must 

 have been dead at least five or six days, and he had great difficulty in 

 skinning and mounting it. The breast-bone was " almost like a razor." 

 There was nothing in the crop or bowels but dark clayey moisture, and 

 no marks of shot or any wounds upon the skin. He came to the con- 

 clusion that it had died from exhaustion. March, 1900, was a month 

 of uniformly low temperature, but there appear to have been no heavy 

 gales from the south-east or south-west to account for the presence of 

 a Sooty Tern so far from its usual haunts. This record is the fourth 

 only for the British Isles, and the seventh for all Europe. The British 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. VII., October, 1903. 2 h 



