Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/211

Rh (Sterna media). Then there is the Gull-gilled Tern (Sterna anglica), which has a black bill, and the White-cheeked Tern (S. albigena), and the Roseate Tern (S. dougalli), which is not mentioned in Jerdon at all. These all, and some others, visit this coast in large numbers during the cold season, and even during the height of the monsoon they are seldom altogether absent. The Roseate Terns breed on the Vingorla Rocks during the monsoon, when they are inaccessible to every enemy except man and almost so to him. Among the rank grass which covers the tops of the islands the birds lay their eggs, jostling each other for room and killing each other's young and behaving like the wild savages that they are. Other species breed on islands in the Persian Gulf, or along the Mekran coast, but I do not think any of them migrate to such distant regions as the Gulls do.

There are several ocean birds more or less nearly related to the Gulls and Terns which roam over the Arabian Sea and between Bombay and Aden, such as the Booby and the Shearwater and the Frigate Bird and the beautiful Tropic Bird. At times, in violent storms, these may be wrecked on our shores, but they do not belong to the Common Birds of Bombay.