Sept, 18. A Sooty Tern was caught by a fisherman, off 
Montank Point. He informed me that it alighted on the 
deck, near a tub of fish, and was easily captured. I consider 
it quite a prize. — --— . . ^ — ' 
ft. Tf.ft. d *6 & 
O.&O. IX.Feb, 1884. p.Jy 
t/a /ft 
f*S /3 o"jj< 
2io. Sterna fuliginosa. Sooty Tern. —Through the courtesy of the 
Curator of Ornithology, Mr. William Brewster, I have been permitted to 
examine an immature mounted specimen of the Sooty Tern which is in 
the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History. It was secured at 
Lake Champlain, September 6, 1876, by Jenness Richardson. The bird has 
not, to my knowledge, been previously taken so far inland; but it must be 
remembered that the date of its capture (Sept., 1876) is the same as that 
of the extraordinary influx of this species into New England. 7 _ 
Auk, I, Jan,, 1884, p. 5 <? 
+ Merriam’s Review Birds Connecticut, 1877, pp. 134-135. 
Long Island Bird Notes. Wm. Dutoher 
2 . Sterna fuliginosa. Sooty Tern.— -To my friend Mr. 
Charles Earle, of New York City, I am indebted for the privilege 
of adding still another bird to the Long Island list. The month 
of September, 1878 , was spent by him at Lake Ronkonkoma, 
which is the geographical centre of the island. A very heavy 
storm occurred on the 13 th of that month, during which he 
shot the Tern here recorded. He informs me that he saw thirty 
or more Terns but does not recollect of what species. He has no 
record of the direction or duration of the storm, but remembers 
that the Terns “were flying diagonally across the Lake from the 
southwest, and continued their flight toward the Sound. I should 
certainly conclude from all the conditions of the storm that the 
birds were carried from their normal habitat by its force. In my 
two years’ wanderings about Ronkonkoma I never observed any 
Terns before on the lake, although a local gunner told me he 
had sometimes observed them, but I should say they were strag¬ 
glers from the coast.” As there was no published description of 
the phase of plumage presented by this specimen I submitted it to 
Mr. Robert Ridgway, who writes, under date of Washington, 
January 19 , 1886 , as follows : “I have carefully examined the 
Tern, which is undoubtedly S. fuliginosa, and is a young bird 
apparently in its second year. It is in moult, and a very singu. 
lar thing is that the new feathers appearing on the breast and 
other lower parts are darker than the old plumage. From this 
I infer that another moult would be necessary—probably during 
the following spring, but possibly not until the next autumn— 
before the white plumage of the adult would be assumed. It is 
possible the feathers themselves might eventually fade to white, 
but I regard this as hardly probable. I send a description, as 
requested.” 
“Sterna fuliginosa. A young bird in transition plumage (apparently in 
second year) from Lake Ronkonkoma, Long Island (Sept. 13, 1878, 
Charles Earle, collector), differs from the young in first plumage as de¬ 
scribed in ‘Water Birds of North America’ (Vol. II, pp. 312, 313) as follows : 
The rather light sooty brown plumage of the lower parts is much mixed 
or clouded with a darker and less brownish sooty tint, these dark feathers 
(belonging to the new dress, just being assumed) having the whole of 
their underlying portion grayish white, this color showing through 
wherever the plumage is disarranged. The upper and lateral portions of 
the head are clouded with blackish (new feathers). The wing-coverts and 
tertials are entirely destitute of the white terminal bars of the first plu¬ 
mage, the general surface of the wing being dark sooty brown, mixed with 
new feathers of a decidedly darker color, these prevailing over the an¬ 
terior portion of the lesser covert region, where contrasting very boldly 
with the broad and very distinct white border to the fore arm and bend 
of the wing. The old feathers of the back and scapulars are sooty brown, 
without white tips (the latter being worn off?) ; the new feathers, which 
largely prevail, are dark brownish slate, with a chalky cast in certain lights, 
bordered terminally with ashy white—these lunulate markings being very 
different from the much broader, much more distinct, and directly trans¬ 
verse white tips of the first plumage. The lateral rectrices are much more 
elongated and attenuated than in the first plumage, but less so than in the 
adult; in color they are much like those of the latter, being white for the 
basal half or more, passing gradually into grayish dusky toward the end, 
the tip again grayish, especially on the outer web. Lining of the wing 
grayish white, becoming nearly pure white on the longer axillars, clouded 
faintly with light sooty gray toward the anterior and outer border of the 
wing. Anal region abruptly grayish white; crissum and lower tail -coverts 
grayish white or pale gray, the feathers with darker tips. Wing, 11.20; 
tail, outer rectrices, 5.40, middle rectrices, 3.50; culmen, 1.60; gonys, .80; 
tarsus, .95; middle toe, .80.” 
Aok, S, Oct., 1886. p. A/33-3N 
