NODDY TERN 39 



of Dublin, about the year 1830. One of them is still preserved 

 in the Dublin Museum. 



Range outside the British Islands. — The following summary of 

 the distribution of the Noddy is given by Mr. Saunders in the 

 British Museum " Catalogue of Birds " : — " Tropical and 

 juxta-tropical America, chiefly on the Atlantic side, but also 

 on the Pacific, in Mexico and the central region ; Atlantic 

 down to Tristan da Cunha (breeding) ; inter-tropical African 

 and Asian seas, up to Yeddo ; Australasia down to about 35° 

 S. ; islands of the Pacific up to Laysan, &c., and as far as Sala 

 y Gomez, 105° W. ; also Chatham Island, Galapagos {fide 

 Ridgway), but not on the coasts of Peru or Chile. Breedmg, 

 as a rule, where found." 



Habits. — The Noddies nest in enormous numbers in some of 

 the islands of the Southern Ocean, generally in the vicinity of 

 the Sooty Tern (S. fuliginosa) with which the Noddy is always 

 on good terms. The birds are generally so tame as to be with 

 difficulty removed from their nests, but Mr. Palmer says that 

 he has known them boldly drive away Albatroses. Gilbert gives 

 a good account of the nesting of the Noddy on Houtman's 

 Abrolhos off Western Australia, and he declares that the 

 increase in the number of the Terns would be overwhelming 

 but for the check which nature has provided against it in the 

 shape of a lizard, which is extremely abundant about their 

 breeding-places, finding an easy prey in the Noddy and 

 Sooty Terns. "I am satisfied," he writes, "from constant 

 observation, that, on an average, not more than one out of 

 every twenty birds hatched ever reaches maturity or lives long 

 enough to take wing ; besides this, great numbers of the old 

 birds are constantly killed. These lizards do not eat the whole 

 bird, but merely extract the brains and vertebral marrow ; the 

 remainder, however, is soon cleared off by the Dei-mestes 

 lardarius^ a beetle which is here in amazing numbers, and gave 

 me a great deal of uneasiness and constant trouble to preserve 

 my collection from its repeated attacks." The food of the 

 Noddy is said by Gilbert "to consist of small fish, small 

 moUusca, medusse, cuttle-fish, &c." 



Nest. — Made of sea-weed, according to Gilbert ; about six 

 inches in diameter, and varying in height from four to eight 



