436 ANSERES. LARID^E. 



hollow it for the reception of some three eggs, 

 the addition of the urate of lime from their dung 

 sufficiently cementing the loose particles." 



In a subsequent communication my friend re- 

 verts to the same interesting subject. " The nests 

 of the Noddy, which, though so elaborately framed 

 with sticks, are exceedingly shallow, with scarce 

 any hollowing at all, are always embellished with 

 an addition of broken shells, (sea-shells,} generally 

 speckled and spotted like the eggs. Mr. Wilkie 

 examined them, and they were sea-shells. The ob- 

 vious suggestion for this curious prevalence of a 

 habit, which he found to distinguish every nest, was 

 its deceptiveness ; so much similarity existed be- 

 tween the sea-shell and the egg-shell. I find that 

 Audubon records a similar fact with the Noddy 

 Terns of the Florida Kays. These are his words : 

 ' In a great many instances, the repaired nests form- 

 ed masses nearly two feet in height, and yet all of 

 them had only a slight hollow for the eggs, broken 

 shells of WHICH were found among the entire, as if 

 they had been purposely PLACED THERE.' Mr. Wil- 

 kie was totally unacquainted with this noticed 

 particular in Audubon's ' Ornithological Biogra- 

 phy.' Has Audubon misread his note ' broken 

 shells,' and by the following words * of which,' made 

 them egg-shells, when they should have been sea- 

 shells ? This is at least worth a remark. Mr. Wil- 

 kie says he took the pieces of shell out of the nest, 

 and inspected them. Audubon merely says, ' The 

 bushes rarely were taller than ourselves, so that 

 we could easily see the eggs in the nest. 9 " 



