THE WHITE NODDY. 
433 
It has as wide a range as the last^ being found in all the intertropical 
seas o£ the globe^ and occasionally wandering some distance out of this 
zone^ even as far as Great Britain. 
This Tern is an inhabitant of the wide ocean, being most frequently 
found near lonely islands and isolated rocks. Mr. Hume found it breeding 
in enormous numbers in January and February on one of the Laccadive 
Islands. Many of its breeding-haunts are known; but the most remark- 
able place of this kind is, perhaps, on Ascension Island, where tlie scene 
presented to the visitor is extremely curious and has acquired the name of 
Wideawake Fair.'' 
Genus GYGIS, Wagler. 
Ill, GYGIS ALBA. 
THE WHITE NODDY. 
Sterna alba, Sparrm. Mus. Carls, i. pi. xi. ; Schlegel, Mus. Pays-Bas, Sternce, p. 35. 
Sterna Candida, G7n. Syst. Nat. i. p. 607. Gygis Candida, Gould, B. Austr. 
vii. pi. 30; Saunders, P. Z. S. 1876, p. 667 David et Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 629 ; 
Penrose, Ibis, 1879, p. 279. Gygis alba, Salvad. Ucc. Born. p. 375 ; Hume, 
S. F. vii. p. 447, viii. p. 116. 
Description. — The whole plumage pure white ; the shafts of the quills 
and the feathers immediately round the eye black. 
Bill in the dry specimen black ; tarsus and toes brown, said to be orange 
in the live bird. 
Length about 12 inches, tail 4*6_, wing 9*3j tarsus *45, bill from gape 2'3^ 
at front 1'75. 
As noted by Mr. Hume, there is a specimen of this bird in the Leyden 
Museum procured by Dussumier in the Bay of Bengal; and Mr. Hume 
further notes that he believes that he has twice seen this species in the 
same seas. In any case it must at times occur sufficiently near the 
Burmese coast to justify its title to a place in this work. 
The White Noddy is an oceanic Tern of very wide range, but conhned 
more or less to the tropics. It breeds on islands and rocks in various 
parts of the world, laying a single egg on the bare ground or sometimes 
on a low flat branch of a tree, without making any nest. 
An allied species is G, microrhyncha , Saunders, which differs in being 
smaller and in having the shafts of all the primaries white except those of 
VOL. II. 3f 
