576 Mr. T. Carter on the Birds of [Ibis, 



Melanosterna anaethetus novaehoUandiae. 



A good mauy Australian Bridled Terns were seen at Slope 

 Island on 16 November, 1916. A single fresh egg was 

 found on the bare ledge of a cliff there, about twenty feet 

 above the sea. Attention was attracted to it by seeing one 

 of the birds constantly flying to the ledge and hovering 

 close to the egg. 



■"»&• 



Bruchigavia novaehoUandiae longirostris. 



Western Silver Gulls were plentiful in all parts of Shark's 

 Bay. Scores of them were to be seen daily around the home- 

 stead on Dirk Hartog Island, many of them waiting for a 

 chance of stealing some of the food thrown to the fowls, 

 and more of them in the vicinity of the station " gallows," 

 where sheep were killed daily when shearing was in progress^ 

 The birds jjaid their attention most to eating particles of 

 fat off the entrails and skins of the slaughtered sheep. As 

 scores, and sometimes hundreds of lambs were daily ear- 

 marked, castrated, and tailed in the sheep-yards at shearing- 

 time, the large mob of these Gulls that was always in the 

 vicinity of the buildings would, as soon as they observed 

 lambs being so treated, perch in long rows on the top 

 rails of the sheep-yards, in close proximity to the scene of 

 operations, waiting to feed on the testicles of the lambs as 

 soon as the latter had all been let out of the yards, and the 

 operators gone away. Mr. Lloyd, the manager, informed 

 me that numbers of these Gulls breed on Egg Island, 

 near Quoin Bluff, on the mid-east coast of Dirk Hartog. 

 As many recently fledged birds of the year were seen 

 about the station, still being fed by the parent birds, on 

 September 28, the breeding-season is probably in August. 



Gabiamis pacificns georgi. 



Tiie Western Pacific Gull was fairly common about Dirk 

 Hartog and the Peron. The mature birds are known as 

 " Mollyhawks " by the residents, who will not believe they 

 are the same species as the young birds in their brown 

 plumage. 



