910 Birds of Celebes: Laridae. 



suffer itself to be taken by hand, and, when breeding, must often be pushed 

 off the nest in order that its egg may be taken. Probably, like man, it knows 

 when adult hardly any enemy in the animal kingdom, its most serious incon- 

 venience, as with him, being a too rapid increase of population. Consequently 

 it lays only one egg, but the returns from its nurseries seem to suffer great 

 reduction from enemies to its eggs and young. At the Houtmann's Abrolhos 

 off West Australia Gilbert found a small lizard which preyed upon the young 

 (devouring only the brain and marrow) to such an extent that he expressed the 

 conviction that not more than one in twenty of the birds hatched ever reach 

 maturity; besides which great numbers of the old birds were constantly 

 killed (11). 



GENUS STERCORARIUS Briss. 



See description of family Laridae, p. 893. 



388. STERCORARIUS sp. 



In the "Natuurkundig Tijdschrift v. Ned. Indie" 1876, XXXVI, p. 379, 

 van Musschenbroek records a species of Stercorarius as having been seen, 

 but unfortunately not obtained, by him. Mr, H. Saunders (Cat. B. 1896, XXV, 

 326) records S. pomatorhinus (Temm.), which has a vast range chiefly in the 

 Northern Hemisphere, both from Japan and from Cape York, Australia, so that 

 its occurrence in Celebes seems probable. Under the name <S. hardyi, Stercorarius 

 parasiticus L. was recorded by Bonaparte (C. Av. 1856, II, 210) as having been 

 captured between the Philippine and Sandwich Islands. Still more likely to 

 occur in Celebes is S. crepidatus (Banks), a circumpolar species, ranging south 

 to Australia and New Zealand. The two latter species according to Mr. H. 

 Saunders, have the wing under 356 mm, but 8. pomatorhinus above this length; 

 S. parasiticus has only two outer primaries with white shafts, and the central 

 rectrices longer than in S. crepidatus, sometimes projecting 230 mm. 



ORDER TUBINARES. 



The Petrels and Albatroses may always be distinguished from other sea- 

 birds by the shape of the nostrils, though some of them are extremely like 

 Gulls or Skuas in external appearance. The nostrils take the form either of 

 two short tubes on the sides of the maxilla (Albatros), or lie close together as 

 tubes on the surface of the culmen, or are laterally united with a single orifice 

 above the culmen. For further particulars see Salvin, Cat. B. 1896, XXV, 

 340—42; Gadow in Bronn's Kl. u. Ord. VI, 4, Aves 1893, II, 129; etc. 



