LARIDJE. 69 



" Unlike other Terns which frequent the sea-shores and rivers, the Noddies frequent 

 the wide ocean, far remote from laud, and which, like the Petrels, they seldom quit, except 

 at the hreeding-season, when they congregate in vast multitudes on small islands suited to 

 the purpose." — Gould, 'Birds of Australia,' vol. ii. p. 412. 



Audubon says the Noddies never rest on the ground ; but there appears to be a difference 

 of opinion on this subject. 



Mr. Howard Saunders describes five members of the genus. On the Australian voyage we 

 should only expect to meet two. 



Noddy Tebn (Anous stolidus). — The following interesting account of several ocean birds 

 (including this bird) appeared in the ' Field,' June, 188G, in an account of the Chesterfield 

 Reefs, by Mr. Layard : — 



"Long Island is about one and a half miles in length, bj' one hundred yards across in the broadest 

 place. About a mile at one end is thickly covered with trees, all of an equal height of about forty feet. 

 I do not know what botanical genus they belong to, but the wood was so brittle that a branch as thick as 

 my leg could be snapped in two as easily as breaking a carrot, so that climbing for eggs was a dangerous 

 amusement. When the wood dried, it was so friable that it would not burn. The tree had bunches of 

 seeds so glutinous that I often found the wretched Terns dying of starvation on the ground, with their 

 wings and tails so tightly glued together that they could not fly, and it took me some trouble to release 

 them. It was a curious sight ; whenever a nest could be placed on a forked branch or a projecting knot of 

 a tree-trunk, there a nest was. It was a rather thick but perfectly flat structure of dried leaves or seaweed, 

 but round about the houses the birds picked up any old rags, bits of paper, twine, &c. Every nest had a 

 bird, old or young, on it, and the screaming from the millions of Terns was something deafening. The 

 greater number of the birds were the white-headed sooty-bodied Terns {Ajwus mchuiops and A. stolidns) ; 

 but there were also thousands of Great Boobies (Snlafiisca and S. pcrsonata) and Frigate Birds, who built 

 their large nests on the tops of the trees, where it was almost impossible to get at them. The beautiful 

 Tropic Birds, or 'Boatswains,' had all been driven off the island by the Malabar guano-diggers, who 

 killed them on their nests to get their feathers to stuff mattrasses and pillows. The whole island also was 

 completely honeycombed with the burrows of the Black Petrels, or Mutton Birds {Ptiffinus brevicaudus)." 



Yarrell tells us that the reason this bird is so often caught on board ship is " because 

 it does not see well by night, and it is for this reason it frequently alights on the spars 

 of vessels, where it sleeps so soundly that the seamen often catch them." 



Mr. Howard Saunders, in his article on the Sterniiue, says of this bird : — "This well-known 

 species, a straggler to the British seas, ranges from the gulf-coast of North America to the 

 shores of Australia, throughout Polynesia, and occurs, in fact, in all tropical waters. There 

 appears to be no constant difference between individuals from the most distant localities ; 

 and this similarity applies to its habits and breeding, its single egg being deposited on a nest 

 of seaweed placed on mangrove bushes, in the fork of a tree, or even on the bare rock." 



The bird is thus described by Yarrell, ' British Birds ' (vol. iii. p. 420 : — " In the adult 



