40 AVIFAUNA OF LAYS AN. 



black, but the shaft and outer web of the first primary white below, except on the 

 outermost tip. Tail-feathers sooty black ; all the shafts white below, and the shafts of 

 the outer pair, as well as their outer web and basal part of inner web, white. Total 

 length about 17 to 17^ inches, win- 116 to 12, outer rectrices (if not abraded) 7'5 to 8, 

 central pair 3, culmen 1'7 to 18, tarsus 0'85. (Specimens from America and the 

 Kcrmadec Islands are exactly similar.) Iris dark brown ; bill and foot black. 



Young. Dark sooty brown above and below, somewhat paler below ; under wing-coverts pale 

 greyish; anal region greyish white; feathers of the back and rump narrowly, upper 

 wing-coverts, scapulars, and rectrices broadly tipped with white. 



With the exception of the breeding-season being a month later, the habits of the Sooty Tern 

 are the same on Laysan as on French Frigate Shoals. They lay one egg, and are quite 

 fearless, pecking at anyone, but never flying off the nest. They arc extremely noisy, and 

 seem never to sleep. The Americans here call them " Wideawake Terns." 



The very well-known eggs are extremely variable and white, or creamy white, spotted 

 with chestnut and brown, with some underlying spots of purplish grey. They measure 2 by 

 1-4 inches. One beautiful variety is cream-colour, covered with rich chestnut patches, and 

 measures 2*2 by T51. 



(The lithograph of this bird breeding was done from a photograph taken by Mr. Walker, 

 the negative being too dense to print in collotype.) 



