38 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Another species is the Larus (Xejvia) Jamesonii, Jameson's 

 Silver Gull. The sexes apparently are the same in colour, and 

 may be seen in flocks over all the southern portions of Australia, 

 and often up rivers hundreds of miles from the coast. I have 

 seen them during three successive years in our sister colony, 

 beyond the Murray, at Swan Hill. The flight is easy and buoyant 

 to the fullest extent. A third species, L. Gouldii, is to be 

 observed in Northern Australia. 



Passing into a group of birds, which are recognizable by their 

 pointed form of bill, we have first the Anous stolidus, Linn., 

 Noddy Tern. This sombre-coloured tern is a northern bird and 

 an ocean rover, preferring to spend its time distant from land, 

 except during the breeding season, when it is to be seen in vast 

 numbers, in company with its congener, A. fuiiginosa, inhabiting 

 the islands strewed so conspicuously to the east of our continent. 

 Mr. Gilbert records it as being numerous in Western Australia — 

 in fact, great nurseries are to be found in all the equatorial waters. 

 Eggs received by the writer from localities 4 S. and 3,000 miles 

 from the north-eastern coast indicate the breeding seasons to be 

 April and November, and from 25 S. to be November and 

 December. Mr. A. J. Campbell, F.L.S., on return from a recent 

 trip to the Houtman's Abrolhos, described the bird as breeding 

 in hundreds on the bushes, another species in hundreds under the 

 bushes, and a third species by hundreds in the ground under the 

 bushes. The sanitary arrangements of such a " home, sweet 

 home," are anything but in accordance with the phrase. Though 

 the flight of the bird is laboured, compensation is obtained in the 

 largely developed membrane of the foot enabling it to swim with 

 perfect ease. The matured sexes are almost identical, and the 

 young acquire the plumage at an early date, as there are no 

 decidedly prominent colours inherited. Sterna stolidus, of Chinese 

 waters, is presumed to be the same as the one here figured. 



Anous tenuirostris, Temm., Lesser Noddy Tern. Like A. 

 stolidus, this species is truly gregarious, having resort to the same 

 breeding places each year, when the nests are placed in shrubs, 

 especially mangrove, about 5 ft. from the ground, and in closely 

 packed encampments. The nest is very loosely constructed of 

 herbage, principally seaweed, placed in forks and horizontal 

 boughs of arboreous vegetation. Similarly with the other members 

 of this genus, the birds are without " days at home," being from 

 early morn to sunset on the ocean cruising, when towards evening 

 they will wend their homeward way, the early arrivals waiting for 

 the stragglers before retiring. It is at sunset that one receives a 

 surprise in witnessing the amazing clouds or flights of thousands, 

 hovering above the rookery before finally settling to indulge in the 

 sleep of the just. The differences in the sexes are not visibly 

 discernible. 



