NODDY TERN. 419 



advanced, but re-aliglited as soon as we had passed. The 

 bushes were rarely taller than ourselves, so that we could 

 easily see the eggs in the nests. This was quite a new sight 

 to me, and not less pleasing than unexpected. The Noddy, 

 like most other species of Terns, lays three eggs, which 

 average tAvo inches in length, by an inch and three-eighths 

 in breadth, and are of a reddish-yellow colour, spotted and 

 patched with dull red and faint purple. They afford ex- 

 cellent eating, and our sailors seldom failed to collect buckets- 

 ful daily during our stay at the Tortugas. The wreckers 

 assured me that the young birds remain along with the old 

 through the winter, in which respect the Noddy, if this ac- 

 count be correct, differs from other species, the young of 

 which keep by themselves until spring. At the approach of 

 a boat, the Noddies never flew off their island, in the manner 

 of the Sooty Terns. They appeared to go farther out to sea 

 than those birds in search of their food, which consists of 

 fishes mostly caught amid the floating sea-weeds, these Terns 

 seizing them, not by plunging perpendicularly downwards, as 

 other species do, but by skimming close over the surface in 

 the manner of Gulls, and also by alighting and swimming 

 round the edges of the weeds. This I had abundant oppor- 

 tunities of seeing while on the Gulf of Mexico. The flight 

 of this bird greatly resembles that of the Night-hawk when 

 passing over meadows or rivers. When about to alight on 

 the water, the Noddy keeps its wings extended upwards, and 

 touches it first with its feet. It swims with considerable 

 buoyancy and grace, and at times immerses its head to seize 

 on a fish. It does not see well by night, and it is for this 

 reason that it frequently alights on the spars of vessels, where 

 it sleeps so soundly that the seamen often catch them. When 

 seized in the hand it utters a rough cry, not unlike that of a 

 young American Crow taken from the nest. On such occa- 

 sions it bites severely, with quickly-repeated movements of 



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