EASTERN WHITE-SHAFTED TERNLET. 
trifle less deep bill than minuta (European) ; it has the shafts of the first three 
primaries (at least) black (the first occasionally in non-breeding plumage 
rather brown) ; and the entire rump, upper tail coverts and tail (except the 
longest and external feathers on either side, which is pure white) grey, uni- 
colorous with the back ” ; then adding, “ whereas in the breeding plumage 
minuta appears to have always two dark primaries and true sinensis only 
one, saundersi has at least three.” 
Then he continued : “ The Common (Lesser) Tern of Upper India is not 
truly identical with the European form as Gould had contended ” ; “ the rump 
is greyer”; “the shaft of the first primary is white or brownish- white ” ; “two 
dark primaries ” — and provided for this the name S. gouldi. He moreover 
described a third with two dark primaries, both shafts white, and the upper 
tail-coverts as well as rump and sometimes the central tail-feathers grey, and 
stated this was not an immature phase, as the specimens were males shot 
over eggs in the Ganges at end of April. 
When Saunders monographed the Terns in the Cat Birds Brit Mus., he 
had the Hume collection to work through, but unfortunately not recognising 
subspecific differences, was unable to define the forms Hume had suggested. 
He therefore lumped S. gouldi with 8 . minuta, but recognised 8. saundersi 
as occurring in India and South Africa. Whether two or three subspecies occur 
in India or not, I am unable to decide, but I do not lay much stress on the 
primary- and primary-shaft coloration without corroborative characters. 
It seems to have been overlooked by Saunders that the tafi-feathers of the 
breeding female of the European 8. minuta (albifrons) are washed with grey 
while those of the male are pure white. Though Hume implies that the 
breeding males have grey tail-feathers they are only washed with grey, but 
darker than the grey wash of European females. Hume rejected Muller’s 
8. pusilla as indeterminable, but inasmuch as Temminck’s quotation above 
given is the first use, that is the one to be considered. The characters there 
given are exactly those which first strike the eye when an East Indian bird 
is placed alongside a European specimen, so that 8. pusilla Temminck 
must be made use of. I select as the type-locality Java. This wiU leave 
8. saundersi to be used for the Indian bird. 8. gouldi Hume is preoccupied 
by 8. gouldi Reichenbach, so that should further races be recognised as 
inhabiting India, new names will have to be provided. \ 
In the Nomend. Av. Mus. Zool. Berot, p. 98, 1854, Lichtenstein had 
named a 8ternula orientalis from South Africa, Ostindien, but that still 
remains a nude name. 
In the Ahhandl. nat. Ver. Bremen, Vol. XII., p. 45, 1891, Hartlaub 
described 8ternula novella from Mtoni. 
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