1042 
STERNA ANiESTHETA. 
recently procured it, and extends northward to J apan, where it is apparently a rare straggler. It has been 
found on the Pacific coasts of America ; and there is a specimen in the Norwich Museum from the Aleutians 
alluded to by Von Heuglin. 
Habits.— The Brown- winged Tern is purely an oceanic species, and is a bird of buoyant and rapid, though 
not very powerful, flight; for it is invariably driven from its maritime haunts to the shore in high winds, 
and is often in such an exhausted state that it may be taken by hand from the rigging of vessels, from the 
gunwales of boats, and from any prominent object on piers and wharves, where it will alight, seemingly quite 
regardless of its natural enemy, man. I have taken it myself from the awning of a steamer in the Colombo 
Roads, and have seen it captured while sitting on the gunwale of a canoe in the harbour. Mr. Hume testifies 
to its being frequently thus taken on ships in Indian waters ; and probably, as is the case in Ceylon, the 
specimens thus procured are immature. When caught their stomachs are often quite empty. While taking its 
food or capturing small fish, such as sardines &c., it flies along the water, almost touching the surface, and 
darts down its bill as it proceeds ; at times it hovers over a fish, and, descending rapidly to the water, takes it up 
as described, but does not pounce on it. On stormy nights great numbers are attracted by the lights of maritime 
towns, and pass many hours in wheeling round and round in the air, uttering their far-sounding notes. These 
sounds I heard at Galle, Trincomalie, and Colombo for several years before I identified the bird, as while on 
the wing by day it is silent; but one evening, on the new breakwater at Colombo, I was attracted by' the familiar 
and unidentified note, and found a young bird sitting on a balk of timber screaming lustily, perhaps to its 
fellows who were flying about in the harbour. This note may be syllabized by ker Wee, tree tree, which, when 
uttered by a number of birds together, has a peculiarly consonant and grating sound. It feeds much on 
garbage and refuge thrown out of ships. Von Heuglin writes that it avoids flat coral islands, and frequents 
precipitous islands and cliffs; and further notices that on moonlight nights it is about until very late 
Nidification . — The last-mentioned author found this species breeding on cliffs near Djedah, on the Arabian 
coast of the Red Sea, in June. Each clutch consisted of two eggs, laid on the bare cliff’, often between stones. 
Mr. Hume found thousands of addled eggs in February on the Vingorla rocks amongst the grass, together 
with numbers of dried-up mummies of old and young birds, which seems to indicate that the birds, which 
evidently breed during the height of the monsoon in June, must have been driven away from their stronghold 
by boisterous winds, leaving their offspring and eggs to the mercy of the weather. Eggs of this species & from 
the Red Sea, in the collection of Mr. Howard Saunders, are pale reddish grey, pinkish, and greyish white in 
ground-colour, oval in shape, and marked with small spots and specks of light red, brownish red,' or dark red- 
brown over blotches of light bluish and purplish grey ; one egg is marked with large blotches of pale pinkish 
grey. Examples measure 1'75 by 1*28 and l - 75 by L ' 1 7 inch. 
The accompanying woodcuts, for the use of which I am (with the consent of Mr. Howard Saunders) 
indebted to the Zoological Society, show the difference in the feet of the last two species. 
Foot of Sterna fuliginosa. 
Foot of Sterna ancestheta. 
