STRKNA. 329 



in October and November, and I have often laiown several tliousaiid to be gathered in one 

 afternoon. Darin<,' the latter half of the season they are \irtually preserved, and no one is 

 allowed to take them. The Sooty Tern lays but one egg at a time. The eggs are variously 

 marked with freckles and spots, while a good number of pun' white ones are generally found 

 during the season. The yolk is always red, which distinguishes them from the Noddies' eggs, 

 ■which, in some cases, they are very like. I have never seen them on any thing but the 

 ground. They are decidedly large eggs for the size of the bird, and though somewhat lishy are 

 not disagreeable to the taste." 



The single egg usually laid for a sitting may be deposited on grass, or under the shelter of 

 a grass tussock-, or exposed on earth, sandy soil, or on bare rock, but in some instances with 

 debris scratched ar(juiui it. Where the eggs of this species could be collected by the barrow 

 full and not missed, it is not surprising there should be a great variation in size, colour and 

 markings, or that the latter may be entirely absent. When on Great Admiralty Rock, off the 

 north-east coast of I^ord llowe Island, in October, lyio, where it was impossible to walk any- 

 where on top of the island without exercising great care to prevent one treading on an egg or 

 young one, it was natural that even in this countless number of eggs there should be prevailing 

 types, and these consisted of a dull white or faint reddish-white ground colour, spotted, freckled 

 or blotched more or less o\er the entire surface of the shell with different shades of red, reddish- 

 brown, and purplish-red. But in the large and handsome series in the Australian Museum 

 Collection, presented by Dr. P. H. Metcalfe and collected by him on Phillip Island, Nepean 

 Island and Norfolk Island, the result picked from twenty years collecting, it would be an endless 

 task to fully describe the extreme variation. Typically they are oval or elongate oval in form, 

 many of them abnormally elongate, or much pointed at the smaller end, the shell being close- 

 grained and most of them lustreless, others having a slight gloss. In ground colour they vary 

 from white to fleshy and reddish-white, pale buff and dull yellowish-stone colour to creamy-liuff, 

 light red, rich creamy-red and salmon-red. It is worthy of note that those specimens entirely 

 devoid of markings, and which Dr. Metcalfe informed me were extremely rare, are white and 

 without the faintest trace of pigment in the ground colour. The markings may be minute 

 freckles, spots, irregular shaped blotches and large clouded patches of dark-red, purplish-red, 

 purplish-black, purplish-grey and reddish-black intermingled with underlying markings of fainter 

 hues, but chiefly purplish, violet and inky-grey, some being uniformly distributed over the entire 

 surface of the shell, others have the markings predominating at one end, usually the larger, and 

 may consist of zones, caps, or only a few large confluent patches. Rarely one finds specimens 

 covered all over with scratches, wavy streaks or tine linear markings as are found on the eggs 

 of the Clildiiiydodcfte. On some specimens all the markings have a blurred look, as if the 

 egg had been twisted in the oviduct, while in others, whether the markings are large or small, 

 all appear as if beneath the surface of the shell. Of all the Australian Tern's eggs, those of the 

 many varieties of Sooty Tern are undoubtedly the richest coloured and most conspicuous in a 

 collection. Four typical sized examples in the Australian Museum Collection measure as 

 follows :— Length (A) 2- 1 1 x 1-47 inches; (B) 2-15 x 1-47 inches; (C) 2-03 x 1-43 inches; 

 (D) 2-1 X 1-48 inches. Four elongated specimens measure :— Length (A) 2-35 x 1-42 inches; 

 (B) 2-39 X 1-35 inches; (C) 2-49 x 1-43 inches; (D) 2-35 x 1-3 inches. Four pure white 

 specimens measure :— Length (A) 2-04 x 1-46 inches; (B) 1-97 x 1-47 inches; (C) 1-93 x 1-37 

 inches; (0)2-09 x 1-38 inches. The largest egg measures :— Length 2-43 x 1-65 inches; the 

 smallest normal egg measures :— Length 1-7 x 1-25 inches. Two perfect runt eggs measure :— 

 Length (A) 1-34 x 0-97 inches; (B) 1-43 x 1-07 inches. All of these eggs were taken by Dr. 

 P. H. Metcalfe, on various dates, on Phillip, Nepean or Norfolk Islands. Four eggs taken on 

 the 14th November, 1907, by Mr. C. G. Gibson, on Pelsart Island, Houtman Abrolhos, Western 

 Australia, measure .-—Length (A) 2-12 x 1-47 inches; (B) 2-07 x 1-48 inches; (C) 2-i x 1-46 

 inches; (D) 2-05 x 1-46 inches. Four eggs taken by Mr. W. McLennan on the 14th December, 



