306 LAKID.E. 



one was close to a lar^'e dam, the other ijuite two miles from water. In both places hundreds 

 of birds were breedin;^, the e^f,'s, two in number, were deposited on the bare ground, and so 

 thickly that care was rei]uired when walking so as not to step upon them. It was during the 

 month of November I saw those breeding,' places. My brother, who visited the one close to 

 the water, and about two miles from \'andembah homesteail, informed me when the young 

 were hatched he saw them travelling over the plains and right away from water, and the ground 

 seemed perfectly ali\e with them, so great was their number, and the old birds, like a great 

 white cloud, were hovering over them. I collected a large number of their eggs, but unfortu- 

 nately they were all broken but one, which I sent to the i\ustralian Museum. The food of this 

 species is not confined to aquatic insects, etc., as I have frequently seen them catching grass- 

 hoppers and other insects out on the plams, descending down on them in just the same manner 

 as Terns do when capturing their piey in the water." 



Dr. \V. Macgillivray sent me the following notes from Broken Hill, South-western New 

 South Wales : — " Early in November, 1903, I first made acijuaintance with GdoihcUdon aiii^Uca 

 on Horse Lake, near the Menindie Road. About this time they had commenced to nest in 

 considerable numbers on some clay banks, surrounded by water, in South Yellow Lake, on 

 Topar Station; by the end of the year nearly all eggs had hatched and the lake was covered 

 with young birds in various stages of development. On the 31st January, 1904, I visited North 

 Yellow Lake, on the same station, where I found (jnly a few of these birds, although Marsh 

 Terns were numerous. At Inkermann Lake, about four miles further south, a colony of Gull- 

 billed Terns were nesting on a long sandy spit, which ran into and parallel with the margin of 

 the lake. ( )n our way to the lak'e numbers of the birds were seen 'hawking' for grasshoppers, 

 crickets and other insect food over the grassy and saltbush plains ; more still were hovering 

 over or settled along the end of the sandbank, where most of the nests were placed. On our 

 approaching the nests most of the old birds rose and hovered over their nests, uttering shrill 

 cries of alarm. Many were seen hurrying their young off to hide them amongst the roots of the 

 Cotton-bush, or to take them out on the water. Several of these young birds were about a 

 week old, which shewed us the birds must have coiumenced to lay as soon as the flood 

 waters had receded from the bank, three weeks previously, giving a period of incubation of very 

 little over a fortnight, probably about sixteen days, and comparing the size of the newly-hatched 

 young in the nests with the smallest running about, I should say that they leave the'nests on 

 the second, >n at latest the third day, after hatching. Even the very youngest newly hatched 

 birds crawled out of their nests and hid in any little herbage near by, flattening themselves on 

 the ground, with head and bill extended. 



"The nests were all along the last fifty yards of sand-spit. I counted sixty-five in all 

 containing eggs ; live of these contained clutches of three, about seventeen contained one egg 

 each, mostly incomplete clutches, and all the rest two each. ]\Lany nests were only in course 

 of formation. The birds seem first to scrape out a depression in the ground, about six or seven 

 inches in diameter, and lay their first egg, then sticks. Swan dung, pebbles and bits of hardened 

 clay are gathered from round about, and gradually the nest is built up, so that by the time 

 incubation has advanced, a week or more, they have a fairly large nest of from twelve to eighteen 

 inches in diameter, four to six inches in height, with an internal cavity three inches in depth in 

 the centre and six inches in diameter, lined with smaller twigs, dung and feathers. The nests 

 were from two to three feet apart. Whilst we were examining the nests the parent birds hovered 

 overhead in numbers, uttering their shrill cries, whilst others were guiding their young ones out 

 on the lake, even the smallest proving themselves to be capable swimmers, but when overtaken 

 they would stretch themselves out flat and motionless on the water, with closed eyelids. Many 

 of the larger young ones were hidden in the herbage on the sand. Most of the eggs were quite 

 fresh or only at an early stage of incubation. 



