THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



139 



The Islands of New South Wales and 

 their Birds*. 



By a. F. Basset Hull^ Honorary Ornithologist. 



In the clays of my boyhood in Tas- 

 mania, a brigantine was making periodi- 

 cal trips to some islands in the Pacific for 

 guano, and the skipper would bring home 

 numbers of handsomely marked eggs of 

 the Sooty Tern and Noddy. From this 

 source our small collections were enriched, 

 and our eager imaginations were stirred 

 by tales of tropical sandbanks littered with 

 eggs; of stretches of sand swept clear of 

 eggs and revisited next morning in order 

 to gather "new-laids" for consumption, 

 and our acquisitive souls grieved at the 

 wanton destruction of the beautiful speci- 

 mens to gratify the coarse appetites of 

 the greedy sailors! How we longed to 

 visit those distant isles and gather the 

 eggs streaked and blotched with great 

 "gouts" of red, brown, and purple ; to 

 tenderly drill them and extract the use- 

 less contents so that magnificent series 

 could grace our collections. It has fallen 

 to my lot to realise those youthful dreams, 

 and the reality even transcended my boy- 

 ish imagination, but I have also found 

 that it is not necessary to travel to the 

 far tropics to see vast numbers of seabirds 

 breeding and brooding their beautiful 

 eggs. 



A glance at the map of New South 

 Wales does not reveal any clusters of 

 islands such as occur along the coast of 

 Queensland, but nevertheless there are 

 many islands and islets to be found at 

 intervals from Montague Island in the 

 south to the Solitaries beyond Coff's Har- 

 bour. At various times during the past 

 fifteen years I have organised expeditions 

 to the majority of these islands and dis- 

 covered that they are all inhabited by 

 numerous interesting species of birds, in 

 seme cases in vast numbers. 



My first visit was to Montague Island, 

 a little to the north of Bermagui. A pre- 



liminary correspondence with the light- 

 house keeper, Mr. A. P. Bailey, led to my 

 accepting his invitation to inspect the 

 '"Gullery." Permission to land having 

 been obtained from the Department of 

 Mavigation, my son and I went by the s,s. 

 Bega (which subsequently foundered off 

 Tilba Tilba), and after sixteen hours of 

 pleasant steaming along the coast we 

 reached the island about 8 a.m. The Ad- 

 miralty chart gives the name of this island 

 a,'> Barunguba. It is 110 cliains in length 

 and -10 chains in width at its widest part, 

 the superficial area being about 310 acres. 

 It is formed of two islets, connected by a 

 narrow neck, through which the sea breaks 

 in heavy weather. The southern and 

 larger portion is of granite, with huge 

 rounded boulders cropping up above the 

 scanty vegetation, and on top of an im 

 mense rock in the centre stands the light- 

 house, constructed of the grey granite 

 itself. The northern portion is of black 

 basalt, the cliffs on the seaAvard side being 

 about 200 feet m height, descending pre- 

 cipitously into the ocean. The landing 

 place is on the southern part, and the 

 track up to the lighthouse passes through 

 low scrub and tussocks of grass, with 

 masses of the creeper Kennedya ruhi- 

 cunda. Under this scrub the runs and 

 burrows of the Little Penguin (Eudyptula 

 minor) extend m every direction. Num- 

 bers of these peculiar birds were sitting 

 on pairs of whitish egg's, more or less 

 nest stained. In the evening those birds 

 which have been out all day obtaining 

 food come home to their expectant fami- 

 lies. Standing on the granite rocks near 

 the boat harbour, and looking over to- 

 wards the mainland five miles distant, 1 

 could see numerous patches of broken 

 water, darkened as if by a passing squall 

 or a shoal of fish. These patches moved 



'See page 128. 



