308 



-%' 



Silistria Lake alone. We counted three hundred occupied nests on one \ isit, luit 1 am afraid 

 that the greater number of the young were accounted for by foxes. All the nests were placed 

 on sandbanks or islands isolated from the shore, but when hatched the young swim ashore and 

 seek shelter in the herbage which grows near the water's edge; here they became an easy prey 

 to the fox, who search the shores every night. By comparison with nine years ago, when the 

 last extensive nesting took place, 1 could not help noting the \'ery few young birds about at the 

 end of a nesting season on any one of these lakes. Attendant on all these colonies of Gull-billed 

 Tern were one or two pairs of SiKer Gulls, who preyed upon the Tern eggs and small 

 young ones. At Inkermann one pair of Silver Gulls had their nest in the centre of the Gull- 

 billed Tern colony. Nesting also on these banks were Black" Swan, White-headed Stilt and 

 occasionally the l\ed-kneed Dotterel. ( )n the Hoating water weed were Hoary-headed Grebe 

 and Marsh Tern. 



"The nestling is covered with greyish down, mottled with dark brown on the upper surface, 

 the mottling being arranged in longitudinal rows ; legs dark olive-yellow ; bill dusky yellow ; 

 gape yellowish-pink ; iris black." 



Both iigures, here represented, are reproduced from photographs taken by Dr. W. 



Macgillivray in 191 2. 



From Broome J till, Western Aus- 



.. \ 



¥1^' tialia, Mr. Tom Carter writes: — "In 



■ "• * 



May, I goo, about five pairs of Gull- 



billed Terns (GelocIwUdon iniglicnj were 

 observed at the flooded salt marsh, on 

 the coast thirty-five miles south of 

 Point Cloates, North-western Austra- 

 lia. (.)n the ist May I found two nests, 

 each containing one egg, on a piece 

 of dry ground on the marsh. There 

 was hardly any nesting material, the 

 e^gs being laid in a slight depression. 

 Two birds were shot at the nests for 



identification. One had been feeding largely on grasshoppers, the other on small lizards. This 



is the only occasion on which I have seen this interesting species." 



The eLjgs are usually two or three in number for a sitting, oval, swollen oval, or elongate- 

 oval in form, some specimens being rather pointed at the smaller end, the shell being 

 coarse-grained, dull in some, in others slightly lustrous. They vary from buffy-white to 

 whity-brown and pale coffee-brown to greenish-grey and light olive-green, over which is 

 distributed irregular-shaped spots of rich umber-brown and brownish-black, with which are 

 intermingled faint underlying markings of inky-grey ; others have small rounded spots and 

 blotches, with here and there irregular streaks of various shades of umber-brown, with the 

 same underlying bluish-grey markings; not a few have the markings consisting of short wavy 

 streaks, lines or scratches of various shades of umber-brown and brownish-black, and similar 

 underlying dull bluish or inky-grey markings, particularly on tlie thicker end, where they become 

 confiuent and form a zone of interlaced streaks and lines. This variety, of a li;;ht oli\e-green 

 ground colour, closely resembles some eggs of the Silver Gull (Lams noviC-hoUandicB). Two 

 sets in the .Australian Museum Collection, taken by Dr. W. Macgillivray on the 31st January, 

 1904, on Topar Station, fifty miles north-east of Broken Hill, measure respectively: — Length i 

 (A) 2-1 X 1-47 inches; (B) 2-07 x 1-47 inches; 2 (A) 2-08 x 1-47 inches; (B) 2 x 1-43 inches. 

 A set of three taken by Dr. Macgillivray on the 6th February, 1909, measures: — Length (A) 

 2-25 X 1-53 inches; (B) 2-21 x 1-53 inches; (C) 2-16 x 1-5 inches. Two eggs taken near 



YOUXG LONG-LEGGKD TEUSS IN NKSP ON A HOT DAY. 



