the Birds of Grand Cayman. 19 



is deafening as it flies round an intruder on its domain, 

 occasionally settling for a short time on a bare limb of some 

 small tree or on the ground, but hardly ceasing its harsh 

 double note until the unwelcome visitor is out of sight. 



A nest of this bird came under observation in June 1913 ; 

 it was on a dry sandbank, scantily covered by grass and 

 other low-growing maritime vegetation, which was largely 

 occupied by a colony of Sterna aniillarum. The nest was 

 merely a slight depression in the sand partly shaded by a 

 small plant of Sea-Rocket (Cakife maritima) ; it contained 

 four eggs of somewhat "plover^' type and arranged in the 

 nest after the manner of these birds, their colour being very 

 like that of the eggs of the Lesser Blackbacked (lull and 

 their size 2*12 x 1*3 inches. When first found, the sitting 

 bird was pressed closely to the ground with her neck and head 

 stretched out, and was at first taken to be a dead fish. She 

 allowed herself to be touched without moving, and was left 

 sitting on the loth of June. On the 22nd the first egg lu.d 

 evidently just hatched, and on this occasion the parent birds 

 were exceedingly noisy. 



The young one, except for the length of the beak, might 

 have been a young Herring-Gull. Its feet were slightly 

 webbed., and it gave no sign of being able to use them, 

 lying quite passively even when handled. On the 25th of 

 June there was no sign of old birds or young except two 

 addled eggs. 



Nomont/x dominicus seems to be more or less abundant 

 throughout the year, on the secluded ponds of salt water 

 which are frequent among the tall Black Mangrove [Avi- 

 cennia) woods in the north of Grand Cayman ; it most 

 probably bi'eeds somewhere near them — very possibly among 

 the dense thickets of Red Mangrove (Rhizophora) , by which 

 they are mostly surrounded. Anyone who has ever been 

 among Red Mangroves will appreciate the difficulty of finding 

 the nest of a diving bird among them — except by a fortunate 

 chance which never came to the writer. 



Most of the resident birds of Grand Cayman are 

 remarkably fearless of man, very much as robins are in 



c 2 



