36 AN AUSTRALIAN BIRD BOOK. 



Being powerful flyers, it is not surprising to find that several 

 of the Australian Terns are really Old-World, and even New- 

 World, forms too. Thus the Whiskered (Marsh) Tern is also 

 British. The Caspian, Gull-billed, and Bridled (Brown-winged) 

 Terns are British and American, while the Sooty Tern is found 

 in all tropical and sub-tropical seas. It is one of the famous 

 birds of the world, for it is the "egg bird" of sailors. It retires 

 in large companies to low scrubby islands to breed. Here it lays 

 a single egg on the bare ground. Sailors, tired of ship's fare, 

 often visit these "rookeries." Gould quotes a record of one party 

 which took 1500 dozen eggs on one small island in Torres Strait. 

 Spanish eggers from Havanah take cargoes, which are disposed of 

 at 25 cents per gallon. 



The Wide-Awake Fair, of Ascension Island, is a famous 

 ariDual event in natural history. A similar scene has been 

 described by Mr. A. W. Milligan, the well-known West Australian 

 ornithologist, on the Houtman Abrolhos Island, west of Western 

 Australia. Here acres of the ground were covered by birds 

 sitting on their nests. The question is, does each find its own nest 

 when it returns to sit? Mr. Milligan settled this in the affirma- 

 tive by tying a piece of string to a sitting bird and then letting it 

 take flight. It found its own egg, and resumed its work. It is 

 noteworthy that no two of the million eggs are similarly 

 marked, and this puzzling variation in marking probably assists 

 each bird to recognize its own egg. 



One of the daintiest of these birds is the Fairy Tern, which 

 was common on Mud Island while the 1909 Summer School was 

 being held. Obedient to the call of the mother bird, which 

 hovered threateningly overhead, the mottled and striped young 

 one squatted on the shelly sand beach while bird-lovers hunted 

 around for the material for a photograph. At length the dark 

 eye revealed the beautifully-protected young bird. 



As the camera was being fixed, a different call from the mother 

 caused the young one to run away. Three or four naturalists 

 tried to catch the active little bird, which stopped for a moment 

 and disgorged two whole small fish, with which its mother had 

 evidently but recently fed it. Eventually a good picture was 

 obtained. These Terns nest singly, though others nest in large 

 companies. They obtain fish by diving into the sea. It was 

 interesting, on a Nature-study excursion, to watch the Crested 

 Terns diving frequently into the sea above a shoal of small fish 

 at Sandringham. 



We found the Noddies breeding in thousands on Mast Head 

 Island, in the Capricorn Group. They built a small platform 

 of leaves, or seaweed, high or low, on every possible nesting site 

 on the great Pisonia trees. In fact, there is an interesting kind 

 of partnership between the bird and the tree. The fruits of the 

 Pisonia have bands of sticky glands, which adhere to the plumage 

 of the birds. After a time the fruits fall off, possibly on another 

 island, and so this interesting tree is spread throughout these 

 small coral sandbanks and islets. The birds are sometimes so 



