SOOTY TERN. Sr 
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 ege on the ground ; the egg is yellowish, with brown and 
violet spots.* 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 with fish. I could per- 
ceive little or no difference between the colours of the male 
and female. 
Length of the sooty tern, seventeen inches; extent, three 
feet six inches; bill, an inch and a half long, sharp pointed 
and rounded above, the upper mandible serrated slightly near 
the point; nostril, an oblong slit ; colour of the bill, glossy 
black ; irides, dusky; forehead, as far as the eyes, white ; 
whole lower parts and sides of the neck, pure white ; rest of 
the plumage, black ; wings, very long and pointed, extending, 
when shut, nearly to the extremity of the tail, which is greatly 
forked, and consists of twelve feathers, the two exterior ones 
four inches longer than those of the middle, the whole of a 
deep black, except the two outer feathers, which are white, but 
towards the extremities a little blackish on the inner vanes; 
legs and webbed feet, black; hind toe, short. 
The secondary wing-feathers are eight inches shorter than 
the longest primary. 
This bird frequently settles on the rigging of ships at sea, 
and, in common with another species, S. stolida, is called by 
sailors the noddy. 
* Turton. 
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