AUSTRALIAN NODDY. 
The detailed description and measurements given show conclusively that 
Nordmann was dealing with a young bird of this species ; the young fly before 
the grey cap commences to show. 
In the Classif. Birds., Vol. II., p. 373, 1837, Swainson proposed the name 
Gavia leucoceps for the bird figured in the Plan. Enl., No. 997. This is apparently 
an immature of this species from Louisiana. 
Hartlaub, in the Ornith. Beitr Fauna Madag., p. 86, 1861, introduced 
Anous rousseaui with the diagnosis : — 
Maximus. Unicolor dilute fuliginoso-rufescens, remigibus et cauda nigricantibus ; 
rostro nigro. Long. 15" ; al. lOJ" ; rostr 1"5" ; tars. 9|"' ; dig. med. 1" 5"'. Madagascar. 
Here again a young bird was described. 
When Coues reviewed the Terns of North America {Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. 
Philad. 1862, p. 558), he noted that the Pacific birds referred to this 
species were larger than the Atlantic ones, and concluded : “If the Pacific 
bird be really distinct from the American, it has probably yet to receive a 
name ; for it is very different from the various species of Anous mostly 
described by Mr. Gould. In that event it may be called a Anous frater.” 
No locality was noted save the Pacific Ocean, and as two names were 
in existence for Pacific Ocean birds, and moreover as one agrees in the 
characters noted by Coues, I designate as the type-locality of Coues’s Anous 
frater, the type-locality of Nordmann’s Sterna unicolour. Although Saunders 
in his review of the Sterninm in the Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.) 1876, p. 669, 
did not disturb the accepted notions of the time, three years later Sharpe 
in the Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. (Lond.), Vol. 168, 1879, pp. 468-469, 
attempted a revision, and there introduced three supposed new species. 
With no respect for geographical distribution, in accordance with the 
majority of ornithological writers of that time when dealing with these 
birds, and ignorant, as we are still, of the plumage changes of this bird, 
Sharpe’s forms were all based on young birds, as was suggested to him at 
the time by Saunders. I append Sharpe’s descriptions : — 
p. 468 Anous superciliosus, sp. n. 
A. similis A. stolido, sed pileo summo cinerascenti-brunneo, linea supercibara alba 
distincta distinguendus. Long, tot 12.2 ; culm. 16 ; alae 10.7 ; caudae 5.3 ; tarsi 0.95. 
Hab. Coast of Central America and the Antilles. 
Anous plumheigularis, sp. n. 
A. ubique cinerascenti-chocolatinus ; capite summo canescente ; macula supra-et infra- 
oculari albida ; plumis anteocularibus nigris ; loris, facie laterali tota dare cineras <c\enti- 
chocolatinis corpore reliquo subtus chocolatino-brunneo ; subalaribus cinerascenti- 
chocolatrinis ; tectricibus alarum superioribus chocolatinis, remigibus rectricibusque 
nigricantibus. Long. tot. 14.4 ; culm 1.55 ; alae 9.8 ; caudae 5.8 ; tarsi 0.9. 
Hab. Red Sea. 
Mr. Saunders hints that the Noddy of the Red Sea is probably incorrectly determined, 
and I have, therefore, examined a specimen which we have in the museum from that 
locality. I find that the bird is apparently distinct from A. melanogenys, differing in its 
clearer grey face and throat, which are not so black ; the wing is also an inch longer, the 
409 
