HKLOCIIKLIDON. 



307 



" At South Yellow Lake, which we next visited, all the young were out on the water swiinniing 

 about in little droves, in all stages of growth, nesting having commenced much earlier, as 

 mentioned previously. The nests here were much more primitive, as they were on a bare 

 earthy bank in the lake, where there was no choice of material, most of them consisting of simply 

 a depression in the soil, built up all round with lumps of earth and the dung of other water 

 birds. Many large young were here found hitling in the grass thirty to fifty yards from the 

 water, their longer legs malcing it possible for them to run over the ground much faster than is 

 the case with other Terns. 



" On the ht\\ March following 1 again visited the birds at Inkermann Lake, and found them 

 still in charge of the sand spit, although the lake had dried away from it and a profuse growth 

 of herbage had sprung up all over, almost hiding the nests. Many young birds in mottled 

 down or early feathering were hiding in the herbage or on the water. Thirty-six nests contained 

 eggs, many being quite fresh; seven of these contained clutches of three, ten contained one and 



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LO^'l^L]■:li^:El) tkuns .sKrii.iM. on a M:,sriNi. i;.\nk in silistkia lake. 



and the rest two. All the nests were more built up and substantial than on our previous visit. 

 In March, IQ05, a few of these birds were noted at Horse Lake, but they did not breed again 

 in the district until the spring of 1910, when they started to nest later in October on the clay 

 bank's in South Yellow Lake, continuing until the end of the year, when I paid them a visit and 

 found nesting had just about finished ; there were a good many young ones on the water, only 

 a few being very small, and an odd clutch or two of eggs, mostly at an advanced stage of 

 incubation or else rotten. On hatching the down of the young bird is a dirty white, mottled 

 with brown or brownish-black, and nearly three months elapses before they are able to fly, and 

 now that fo.xes have become plentiful few will live to reach that stage. The copious rains last 

 January started these birds nesting again at South Yellow Lake in goodly numbers, the nesting 

 continuing until March. 



"This Tern nested freely during the spring and early summer of igi2,atSouth Yellow Lake, 

 Goldring's Well, Silistria Lake and Inkermann Lake, all on Topar Station, about fifty miles 

 north-east from Broken Hill; many hundreds of birds must have hatched out their broods on 



