

NODDY TERN. 571 



numerous instances the bird would suffer me to take it by 

 the wing and throw it off the nest, but would immediately 

 return, although I was still standing close to the spot. There 

 would be an overwhelming increase of this species yearly but 

 for one check which nature has provided against it in the 

 presence of a lizard, which is extremely abundant about 

 their breeding-places, and which finds an easy prey in 

 this and S. fuliginosa. I am satisfied, from constant 

 observation, that, on an average, not more than one out 

 of every twenty birds hatched ever reach maturity, or live 

 long enough to take wing ; besides this, great numbers of 

 the old birds are constantly killed : these lizards do not eat 

 the whole bird, but merely extract the brains and vertebral 

 marrow ; the remainder, however, is soon cleared off by the 

 Dermestes lardarius, which is here in amazing numbers, 

 and gave me a great deal of uneasiness and constant trouble 

 to preserve my collection from their repeated attacks. I 

 did not observe the Noddy inhabiting any other but South 

 Island ; they do not appear to go far out to sea to feed, 

 finding an abundance of food immediately outside the outer 

 reef; nor did I in any one instance observe it feeding in the 

 smooth quiet water between the outer reef and the islands. 

 Their food consists of small fish, small mollusca, medusae, 

 cuttle-fish, &c." 



Audubon states that this species, like the Sooty Tern, 

 lays three eggs, but other authorities state that each female 

 lays and incubates a single egg. A nest is not invariably 

 constructed, and at times the solitary egg is laid in any 

 convenient depression or crevice of the rock or coral-reef. 

 The egg is of a dull ruddy-white or buff, rather rough in 

 texture, sparingly spotted and scrolled with reddish-brown ; 

 average measurements 2 by 1*4 in. 



In the adult bird the bill is black ; from the base of the 

 bill to the eye is also black ; irides brown ; the forehead and 

 crown grey ; occiput smoke-grey ; the throat dark lead-grey ; 

 the body above and below and all the wing-coverts, dark 

 coffee-brown ; primaries and tail-feathers brownish-black ; 

 legs and toes reddish-brown ; membranes yellow, varying in 



