LESSER CRESTED TERN. 
Adult in winter. Differs from the breeding- plumage in having nearly the whole of the 
head white, with the exception of a black spot in front of each eye, a few on the 
crown, and the nape-feathers, which are black, more or less fringed with white ; 
bill pale in colour. 
Immature and Nestling. Do not appear to have been described. 
Nest. A slight depression in the sand or coral. 
Eggs. Clutch, one ; ground-colour light stone, blotched or spotted with very dark purple, 
with lavender ones appearing as if beneath the surface ; axis 54.5 mm., diameter 35-36. 
Breeding- season. November (South Barnard Island). 
Mr. H. Grensill Barnard,* writing of these birds on South Barnard Island, 
where he was on November 23rd, 1891, says : “ The bank [on which the birds 
were breeding] was a very small one, not more than twenty jmrds across, and 
about three of four feet above high water in the centre. On approaching it 
we could see the Terns sitting on the sand in hundreds, also several of a very 
much larger species of sea bird (probably a Skua) which I ascertained after- 
wards on landing were engaged in eating the eggs of the Terns, as I found a 
great number of the eggs with a large hole pecked in the side. The eggs of the 
Terns were placed on the bare sand, one to each bird for a sitting, and so close 
together as only to give the birds room to sit ; there could have been no less 
than five or six hundred eggs on that portion of the bank occupied. Though 
the birds had been breeding more than a month there were no young ones, the 
fishermen informing me that the larger species we saw on the bank devoured 
the young ones directly they were hatched. I shot two of the parent-birds, 
and the men collected about two buckets full of eggs to cook.” 
Gilbert found this species plentiful on all the sandy points about Port 
Essington. 
Mr. J. Walker found a breeding-station of this bird on Adele Island to the 
North-west of Australia ; the young ones were almost full-grown in May (1891), 
but not yet able to fly. 
Mr. E. J. Christian tells me he saw this bird in Victoria in full breeding- 
plumage on August 24th, 1908, about 130 miles from the sea and 170 miles 
from the ocean at Bass Strait. He saw it again on February 16th, 1909, in the 
same locality. 
Mr. Tom Carter says this species is common along the North-west Coast 
of Australia, especially in the summer months. 
The bird figured and described is a female. , \ 
This species has been generally known as Sterna media following Horsfield, 
who, in the Trans. Linn. Soc. (Lond.), Vol. XIII., p. 199, 1821, described a 
Javanese bird thus : — 
S. fronte cervice postice et partibus inferioribus albis pileo albo nigroque vario, nucha 
atra, alis dorso uropygioque glaucis, remigibus supra fuscis cano pulverulentis, subtus 
* Bee. Austr. Mus., Vol. II., p. 21, 1892. 
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