Birds of Celebes: Laridae. 
903 
(4, 5, 12); Sumatra (fide Salvador! b 11); Java (Horsfield b 4, 12); Borneo 
(Scliwaiier, etc. 6, 12, cl); Philippines — Mindoro (Bourns & Worcester 11), 
Palawan (Whitehead 7), Mindanao (Steere c 3); Celebes — North (Meyer el, e 2, 
e 3); ? Timor (S. Muller c 1); New Gruinea — S. coast (fide E. P. Ramsay b 4, b 5); 
New Britain (Einsch b 4, B. & H. Geisler b 8); Islands of Torres Straits (Gould, 
Masters d II, b 4, 12); Australia — Northern and Eastern (Ramsay, etc. b 5, b 6, 12). 
The Oriental form of the liittle Tern was met with by Meyer in 1870^ — 71, 
but has not since been obtained from Celebes, unless the two immature ex- 
amples in the British Museum are from another source. Meyer obtained several 
adults, recorded by Lord Walden. Most probably it is only a winter visitor 
to Celebes. Mr. Whitehead (7) says it is a winter visitor to Palawan, arriving 
about the 2 September; Mr. Styan (10) notices it as a spring and autumn 
bird of passage on the Lower Yangtse, and Kalinowski (b 10) found it abundant 
in Corea in spring, rare in summer and absent in winter. Mr. De La Touche 
discovered it nesting in South China at Swatow in June; here it is a summer 
visitant. In Ceylon Legge found it to be most noticeable in the breeding 
season, but he is not prepared to say that most of the birds leave the island 
for the rest of the year. Mr. North has recorded its breeding in Australia, 
and it is clear from the young specimen in the Dresden Museum that it also 
nests in New Britain, but there seem to be no observations to show whether 
it is strictly stationary or not, south of the equator. 
The White-shafted Little Tern is one of a group of closely allied forms, so 
closely allied in fact that we fear that the marks of distinction pointed out by 
Mr. Howard Saunders and others will hardly hold good for all cases; but of 
this we have no proof. sinensis is separable from /S', minuta , which ranges 
from Europe and Africa to India and has occurred in Java, by the shafts of 
the primaries which are white, Avhereas in S. minuta the two or three outer- 
most are brown above. Sterna nereis Gould of New Zealand, Australia and New 
Caledonia is also white-shafted, but it has only a spot of black in front of the eye, 
instead of a band reaching to the base of the bill. saundersi Hume, ranging 
from E. Africa to Burmah is described as black-shafted and with a straight 
culmen (12). Other forms are found in America. 
385. STERNA MELANAUCHEN Temm. 
Black-filletted Tern. 
Sterna melanauchen (I) Temm., PI. Ool. 1827, pi. 427; (II) Gould, B. Austr. 1848, VII, 
pi. 28; (3) Schl., Mus. P.-B., Stemae, 1863, 28; (4) Gould, Hb. B. Austr. 1865, 
II, 400; (5) Einsch, Neu Guinea 1865, 184; (6) Einsch & Hartl., Orn. Oentral- 
polyn. 1867, 224; (7) Einsch, J. Mus. God. 1875, Vm, 41; (8) Saund., P. Z. S. 
1876, 661; (9) David & Oustal., Ois. Chino 1877, 526; (10) Rosenb., Malay. 
Archip. 1878, 279; (11) Nehrk, J. f. O. 1879, 409; (12) Einsch, J. f. 0. 1880, 
295; (13) Lay., Ibis 1882, 540, 544; (14) Salvad., Orn. Pap. 1882, IH, 443; 
(15) Oates, B. Br. Burmah 1883, H, 429, (16) W. Blasius, J. f. 0. 1883, 127; 
