AUSTRALIAN ROSEATE TERN. 
Now, this bird has the outside tail-feathers half grown the others 
worn but showing no brown tips ; the five outermost primaries are 
old and worn, but the innermost new. The forehead is mottled black 
and white. 
But two birds procured on Houtman’s Abrolhos on October 26th, 1899, 
and November 14th, 1898, are in perfect breeding-plumage, with the “ bills 
black, feet and legs bright red (coral).” 
When we come to deal with other specimens from various parts of the 
north coast, we meet with further peculiarities. Two males procured at Roe- 
buck Bay on November 6th, 1895, have very short black bills and dark legs, 
but have dull brownish black caps with a few whitish feathers on the 
forehead ; both are just commencing to moult. These birds are darker than 
any of the preceding. 
A black-billed bird with the data, “ Female Tern, caught off Campbell 
Island, Torres Straits; legs red; breeding season, March,” has the bill black 
and is in perfect breeding-plumage. 
New Caledonian birds provide more food for thought : “ a ^ non-breed, 
Dec. 14, 1 1879; beak orange and brown; legs orange; iris dark drab” is in 
perfect breeding-plumage ; while a “ $ Sept. 21, 1878 ; beak black ; legs 
orange, iris dark drab” is also in perfect breeding-plumage; yet a third, 
“ $ Oct. 10, 1878, beak black, legs red orange, iris dark drab,” has the 
outer primary old and worn, the remaining primaries new, the tail a little 
worn, but it has the forehead and top of the head nearly all white, the 
back of the head and nape dull brown. 
Another bird from Isabel, Solomon Islands, “ ? July 10, 1901, iris 
dark brown, feet bright red, bill orange with black tip,” is in slightly worn 
breeding-plumage. 
What does the bill-coloration mean ? Apparently the majority of Aus- 
tralian specimens have black bills, but Gould described that of his 8. gracilis 
as “ flesh colour except at the tip, where it is washed with blackish- 
brown,” and a bird from the Gould collection is the only Australian bird I 
have seen fully agreeing with this description. As noted above, all the 
Eastern forms have been lumped under the subspecific gracilis, but with 
this conclusion I cannot agree. ^ 
In the Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., Havard, Vol. XXXVI., p. 256, 1900, Bangs, 
dealing with a collection of birds from the Liu Kiu Islands, called his bird 
Sterna dougallii gracilis, and commented - 
These specimens are extreme of the slender-billed small form to which Gould’s 
name gracilis applies. Specimens from western Europe and Africa agree closely in 
measurements with those from eastern North America and the West Indies. The red bill 
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