A ColL cting Trip in Texas. 
G. B. Benners, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Sterna fuliginosa , Sooty Tern. Jttatner rare. 
We saw them only in one place, and that was 
on an island in the Gulf. Here, they bred, and 
made a very complete nest. It was hidden in 
the long grass under bushes. We never found 
more than one egg in a nest, and we were in¬ 
formed by a good authority that that was all 
that they laid. 
The captain of our boat cooked the eggs of 
this bird and made an excellent omelet, which 
we ate with pleasure, until we found out what 
it was composed of, when we promptly put a 
stop to his proceedings and collected some of 
the eggs ourselves. 
Q.&O. XII. Juu.1887 p. 84 
Birds of Jamaica. W. B. D, Scott. 
8 . Sterna fuliginosa Gmel. Sooty it I' n - Egg Bird. Recorded by 
Gosse at Bluefields, Jamaica, and at Pedro Cays (Birds of Jamaica, p. 
431 )- 
From Mr. Taylor’s notes I transcribe the following : “I have not met 
with this species in the harbor of Kingston or among the cays outside 
Port Roval, where probably it is replaced by 5 . ancest/ietus. During 
severe storms many sea birds are blown inland, and in looking ovei my 
notes for 1887 I find the following passage : ‘August 20. This morning 
a statement appeared in one of the newspapers to the effect that thou¬ 
sands of ‘Boobies’ were seen in an apparently exhausted condition, sitting 
around the large water tanks at Cavaliers. The island was visited during 
the previous night by a cyclone, and these birds may have been blown 
over from the Morant Cays or some other similar locality.’ The birds are 
reported to have frequented the tanks for several days. I did not see them 
while they were there, but for many days after small flocks of Teins 
passed over towards the south ; so far as I could see they were all Sooty 
Terns. 
“Whether the Sooty Tern retires to rest at night, and where, are points 
I cannot decide with any certainty. It is a common belief, however, 
among the egg gatherers, that this species never alights except during 
incubation. 
“The melancholy wailing cries that I used to hear at the cays long after 
the Noddies had settled to roost may have been those of this species, and 
on questioning the men they answered me that they were the cries of the 
‘egg-birds.’ 
“During all the time I spent at the cays no living example of this bird 
came under my observation, except when, almost out of sight of land on 
the passage to Kingston, small flocks were noticed fishing in company 
with Noddies and Boobies. Yet they must frequently be in the near vicin¬ 
ity of the cays, for on more than one occasion I have found remains 
of freshly killed birds, the work, doubtless, of the Duck Hawks, a pair of 
which birds were resident on one of the smaller cays. 
‘•Eggs vary from dull bluish white, through all shades of cream to a 
deep rich buff, and exhibit an almost endless variety of markings, from 
small and uniform dark brown spots to bold, rich, sienna-colored blotches, 
with numerous underlying marks of lavender and neutral tints. Average 
measurements, 2 by 1.50 in. 
“The yolk is bright orange-red, in marked contrast to that of the egg of 
the Noddy Tern, which is dull pale yellow, a circumstance that appears 
to have escaped the notice of most observers,” 
Amk, 8 , Oct. 1891, p. 3 (,/ 
