SUPPLEMENT TO NESTS AND EGGS OF A.USTR. BIRDS — NORTH. 21 



notes respecting the nidification of this Tern, also several of its 

 eggs for description, and a skin of one of the parent birds for 

 identitication. 



" In conversation with the keeper of a fishing station on a 

 small island, about six miles south of North Barnard Island, I 

 learnt that a species of Tern was breeding in great numbers, on 

 a small sand-bank thirty miles due east of the latter island and 

 close to the Great Barrier Reef. One of the fishing boats coming 

 in on Saturday night, I took my gun and went on board ; sail 

 was set soon after, but I did not reach the scene of operations 

 till Monday morning, the 23rd of November, 1891. The bank 

 was a very small one not more than twenty yards across, and 

 about three or four feet above high water in the centre. On 

 approaching it we could see the Terns sitting on the sand in 

 hundreds, also several of a very much larger species of sea- 

 bird*, which I ascertained afterwards on landing were engaged 

 in eating the eggs of the Terns, as I found a great number 

 of the eggs with a large hole pecked in the side. The eggs of 

 the Terns were placed on the bare sand, one to each bird for a 

 sitting, and so close together as only to give the birds room to 

 sit ; there could have been no less than five or six hundred 

 eggs on that portion of the bank occupied. Though the birds 

 had been breeding more than a month, there were no young ones, 

 the fishermen informing me that the larger species we saw on 

 the bank devoured the young ones directly they were hatched. 

 I shot two of the parent-birds, and the men collected about two 

 buckets full of eggs to cook." 



The eggs are oval in form, some of which are sharply pointed 

 at the smaller end and vary in ground colour from a delicate 

 reddish-white to stone and lustreless white, some specimens are 

 boldly blotched and spotted with penumbral markings of purplish 

 and reddish-brown, and underlying blotches and spots of bluish 

 and pearl-grey appearing as if beneath the surface of the shell ; 

 others are uniformly dotted and spotted with smaller markings 

 of the same colours, but in all the specimens now before me the 

 markings on the outer surface of the shell are mostly penumbral. 

 Average specimens measure, length (A) 2-02 x 1-47 inch; (B) 

 2-1 X 1-4 inch ; (C) 2-05 x 1 -43 inch ; (D) 2-08 x 1-42 inch. 



Plotus nov^-hollandi^, Gould. The New Holland Snake-bird 



or Darter. 



Gould, Handhk. Bds. Ausir., Vol. ii., sp. 657, p. 496. 



fThe Trustees of the Australian Museum have lately received 

 the eggs of Plotus novct-hollandice, taken by Mr. J. L. Ayres at 



* Probaply a Skua. 



t North, Rec. Austr. Mus., Vol. i.. No. 7, June, 1891. 



