331 



on Escape River Island, just inland fioni the sea coast. Mr. W. McLennan found them nesting 

 on Bush Island, in Torres Strait, when he visited it on 2nd October, 1910; they had not long 

 started to nest, all the eggs being fresh. I visited this island in company with Mr. McLennan 

 a month later, 3rd November, 1910, when we found them still nesting, the two eggs which 

 usually go to form a clutch being placed on a bedding of tine rock chippings in some convenient 

 hollow or depression on the bare rock. Several nests contained only one egK, and there were a 

 few young birds. Most of the nests were placed just above hifjli water mark, at a higher level 

 Slei'iia aiiiFstlida was nesting, and on the top of the island i". i^rdcilis." 



Mr. Allan K. McCulloch, who spent some hours on an island near Cape York-, Northern 

 Queensland, on the i ith ( )ctober, 1907, and collected adults and youn;; oi Stfiiia iiu-hiinuulu-Ji, 

 has handed me the following notes relative to them: — "Having been unable to get any sea- 

 birds nesting on Murray Island, Torres Strait, during our stay there, Mr. Jardine and I, when 

 at Cape Yoric, took the din^^hy on ( )ctober nth over to a small rock-y island to the north-east of 



.Albany Island, it being one 



Ijij^^gW w 



YOUNG llLArK-N.\I»KI) TKRN.S IX THK DOWN'. 



of the group of that name. 

 W'e arri\ed at a bank of 

 clean white coral clinker, 

 at which spot there ap- 

 peared to be more sea-birds 

 than elsewhere, but we had 

 small chance of observing 

 them, they being much 

 wilder than those I saw 

 under similar conditions at 

 Lord Howe Island. They 

 are more often disturbed, 

 especially by the pearlers 

 and beche-de-mer fisher- 

 men, who go ashore in 

 bodies and smash every 

 egg they can find, to ensure 

 them getting none but fresh 

 ones when they again land in a couple of days time. Then again the natives of the numerous 

 islands in the Straits never fail to make journeys to the nearest sand-hank during the egg-laying 

 season to lay in supplies of eggs and young birds. 



" Landing on the clinker bank, we were not a little disgusted to find it was a little 

 early in the season for eggs. Our first find was a pair of Black-naped Tern's eggs (Sterna 

 ;;;(7(;;iiTH(7;(V/j placed in a very shallow depression in the coral fragments on a low ridge. They 

 were broadly speckled, and bore a remarkable resemblance to their surroundings, so that we 

 walked all round about before noticing them, although they were fully exposed. Near by 

 was a similar nest containing but one egg, while under a large coral block were two newly- 

 hatched chicks. The latter were sitting close together, though one was a creamy-white in 

 colour and the other speckled with black, and only a few yards away, on a flat rock, were two 

 others, both white, and if anything a trifle later from the eggs than the first two. We were very 

 careful not to disturb these nests in any way, as it was first necessary to mark out the parent 

 birds of each. This we did, and the actual parents were then shot, and we proceeded on to the 

 rocky part of the island, after taking a photograph of a nesting-place with two young Black- 

 naped Terns in the down." 



The accompanying figure is reproduced from this photograph. 



