Some Punjab River Birds. 
71 
from nape, ashy grey, slightly tinged with brown on the tertiaries, tips, 
and parts of inner webs o f primaries generally dusky, outor webs frosted 
and whitish : tail paler grey than the back, outer webs of outermost 
rcc'trices white ; fore neck pale grey, gradually passing into ("hocolate, th<Mi 
into black on the breast; abdomen and lower tail coverts black; wing 
lining white. 
In winter the cap is white, streaked with black, and the lower 
parts w'hite. According to Hume the winter plumage is not assumed till 
Uccember, and is only retained for about two montlis . Very young birds 
have broad bufl' outer and blackish inner borders to the feathers of the 
upper parts. 
Bill oiange yellow ; iridcs blackish brown ; legs and feet orange 
red. 
LeiKjtJt 13 ins.; tving i) ins.; bill from (jnpe 1 .8 ins. 
It .seem.s doubtful how long the immature bird takes 
to obtain the adult plumage, for in May and June of this year 
I came across numbers of birds in which the cap was brown 
streaked with black, and with only a few black feathers on 
the underparts; they were clearly not birds of the year, and 
were doubtless non- breeding immature birds of the previous 
season; but it remains to be seen whether a proportion only 
of th(! birds do not assume adult plumage in the first spring 
(as is the case of some other species of Tern), or whether 
all young birds pass one summer in this intermediate garb. 
The nestling in down is above creamy white tinged 
with dirty yellow, and speckled with black, the head being 
most marked; the under surface is white; bill reddish, the 
tip black; ; feet pale pinkish red. 
A third species of Tern which nests on these sands 
is the Lesser Tern, Sterna minuta, Linn.^ a Avell-known British 
nesting species, although the form found breeding in India 
is sometimes separated imder the name of Sterna goiddii, Hume. 
This is much less numerous than the other two species des- 
cribed, and I have only once come across the nests, when I 
found a small number breeding apart near the Terns and 
Skimmers of the Sandbank on which the previously des- 
cribed night attack was made. It appears to be a summer 
visitor only. 
Although not a breeding species in the area under 
discussion, mention must be made of another Tern, which at 
certain periods is a most noticeable feature on these rivers. 
The Whiskered Tern, Hydrocliclidon hybrida (Pallas.), breeds 
in great quantities on the lakes of Kashmere, and in the 
