AUSTRALIAN WHITE-FRONTED TERN. 
Mr. Charles Belcher says this bird is not common in Victorian waters ; it 
may however be seen from time to time in Hobson’s Bay and Port Phillip. 
And although it breeds on ocean islets it is more often to be met with on the 
quieter waters of the bay, than on the coast proper. It may safely be said 
that it does not breed on the mainland of South Victoria. 
Mr. A. J. Campbell,* writing about this species fishing off Town Pier, Port 
Melbourne, says : “ The graceful actions of the birds diving into the water 
and capturing tiny fish were very entertaining. Sometimes they come quite 
close to the pier, poise in the air for a second, then dive headlong into the 
water, rising with a tiny silver-sided fish held in black biU. These clever 
little divers never appear to miss their aim. Their bodies, with semi-closed 
wings, resemble an arrow’s head as they enter the water. Occasionally a bird 
on the wing gives its whole body a nervous quiver, as if throwing off the salt 
sea-spray after a dive.” 
In the Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.) 1842, p. 139, Gould proposed a new 
species of Tern from Tasmanian waters as Sterna velox, thus : — 
Stern, fronte, loris, colli lateribus, et corpore inferiore albis ; spatio circumoculari, 
occipite et nucha nigris ; corpore superiore, alis, caudaque belle cinereis. 
Forehead, lores, sides of the neck, and all the under surface white ; space surrounding 
the eye, occiput, and back of the neck black ; all the upper surface, wings and tail delicate 
grey ; outer web of the external quill greyish black ; shafts of all the primaries white ; 
irides blackish brown ; bill black. 
Total length 13 inches ; bill 2| ; wing 9| ; tail ; tarsi |. 
Hab. Bass’s Straits. 
In his Birds of Australia he amended the name to Sterna melanorJiyncJia, 
as Sterna velox was preoccupied. 
Ramsay identified the East Australian bird as Sterna frontalis, the well- 
known New Zealand species, and that name has been commonly in use partly 
owing to the action of Saunders, who rejected Gmelin’s name of Sterna striata 
in favour of the later S, frontalis. 
I pointed out in the Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 4, 1911, that we must 
revert to Gmelin’s name. 
Gmelin’s description {Syst. Nat., p. 609, 1789) is here given: — 
St. alba supra nigro-undulata, rostro et occipite nigris, pedibus plumbeis. > 
Striated Tern. Lath. syn. Ill, 2, p. 358, n. 10, t. 98. 
Habitat circa novam Seelandiam, puUo cantiacae similis, candidae aequalis. 
Irides plumbeae ; vertex et genae albae, nigro-maculatae ; rectrices aliae margine 
aliae apice nigrae. 
* Neats and Eggs Auatr. Birds, p. 840, 1901, 
367 
