STERNA AN2ESTHETA. 
1041 
About four months old (October). Head much as in the adult in winter, but the lores darker, and the dark feathers 
encroaching on the forehead and tipped with buff-white, and the nuchal feathers broadly tipped ; just behind the 
eye uniform black, passing under the eye ; hind neck grey ; mantle and rump broadly tipped with white, passing 
into the brown with an ochraceous hue ; scapulars more deeply tipped still, and the oehraceous division more 
noticeable ; wing-coverts less conspicuously tipped with white ; tail tipped as the scapulars, the outer feathers 
entirely brown. Some examples have very little white on the forehead. Birds a month older than the above 
show less of the ochreous-brown coloration, and the white tippings are to some extent worn off ; but no rule 
can be established, as seldom two birds are alike, particularly about the head. 
Obs. The extent of the white over the eye varies : in some specimens it is produced quite beyond the posterior edge of 
the eyelid. There is also no little variation in the coloration of the hind neck, some specimens being much paler 
than others, and occasionally quite white. A very fine female in breeding-plumage, from Paternoster Island, 
measures length 15-5 inches ; tail 8-1, outer tail-feathers 5-0 longer than the central ; bill to gape 2-0 ; the 
inner web joins the middle toe at the centre of the 2nd phalange, this being the most deeply excised foot I have 
met with in any specimen examined. 
Sterna albigena, Licht., an interesting, slender-billed, grev-plumaged Tern, inhabiting the Red Sea and northern part of 
the Indian Ocean, has recently been killed at the Laccadives, and therefore may occur in Ceylon at some future 
time. Mr. Hume gives the dimensions of a male as : — length 14 - 5 inches, wing 9*9, tail G-5, tarsus 0’/ 7, middle 
toe and claw 1-04, bill to gape 2-1 5. In summer the bill is coral-red, blackish at the tips and base of culmen ; legs 
and feet bright coral-red; iris brown; wings exceeding the tail by 3 Hues (Heuylin). Above bluish grey; front 
and sides of the neck, breast, and abdomen purplish grey ; chin aud upper part of throat whitish ; lores and 
beneath the eye snowy white. In winter the bill is reddish black, and the legs and feet Indian red. Back, 
scapulars, and tail dark French grey, and the breast and abdomen dusky bluish grey ; lores and forehead white, 
and the crown whitish, spotted with black (Hume). The red legs are a good distinguishing character. 
Distribution. — The Panayan Tern is exceedingly numerous on the coasts of Ceylon at certain seasons of 
the vear. It appears on the west coast, when there is a strong wind blowing on shore, from May till October, 
and *a"-ain in April and May at the commencement of the south-west monsoon. At these periods it may he 
seen in the Colombo Roads and in the inner harbour flying about in search of garbage, and alighting on the 
little wooden buoys used by the native vessels. In August 1874 great numbers visited the port; and in 
October 1876 it was more numerous still, the majority of the birds being quite young. In the former year I 
saw great numbers at the Basses, and the following day (in August) a good many in the Batticaloa Roads. 
At Trincomalie I have chiefly noticed it in December and in April and May, at which dates it used to appear 
for a few days and then move away. At Galle it was numerous in October and November in 1878, but was 
not much seen in the daytime, making itself known by its incessant cries at night. Layard appears only to 
have met with three specimens at Pt. Pedro while out at sea dredging ; and Mr. Iloldsworth does not seem to 
have seen it at all on the Pearl Banks of Aripu. It must also be admitted that, though abundant on the 
coasts in some seasons, its visits are uncertain, for in 1868-69-70 I saw nothing of it at Colombo. It most 
probably wanders over the Indian Ocean in vast flocks, visiting various localities en route. 
Like the last, this species has a very wide intertropical range, but does not seem to be found in central- 
Atlantic localities, like the Sooty Tern; for though it is recorded from Honduras and the West Indies, and' 
from the west coast of Africa, I do not find any mention of its occurrence at Ascension or other Atlantic 
islands ; and it has not strayed into Europe, like the latter bird. In the Indian Ocean, from the east coast of 
Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, and Seychelles, across to Western Australia and northward to Bombay 
and the Bay of Bengal, it is perhaps more abundant than in any other seas. It breeds in great numbers on 
the Yingorla rocks off the Bombay coast, and thence no doubt visits Ceylon. It has been met with between 
Bombay and Kurrachee, and in the Bay of Bengal it occurs on all the islands in the monsoons. In the 
Mermii archipelago it is believed to have been seen, but nowhere else on the coast of Tenasserim. In the 
Malay islands it is recorded from Sumatra, Java, Borneo (Pontianak), Moluccas, and Celebes; and from the 
Philippines it was made known by Sonnerat. It has been met with on the south coast of New Guinea, in 
Torres Straits, at Port Darwin, Cape York, Rockingham Bay, down the whole of the east coast to Victoria, 
and thence to South Australia; and on the coasts of Western Australia it breeds at the Houtmann’s Abrolhos. 
It is found at some of the Pacific islands, including the Sandwich, also the Fiji group, where Layard has 
