18 BIRDS OF KERGUELEN ISLAND. 



from the eye backward, as wide as the eye itself, fading into pearl- 

 gray ; throat and cheeks pearl-gray. 



Body generally pearl-gray ; rump white. 

 , Tail paler on its upper surface than the rest of the body, forked, the 

 left fork usually the longer [f ]. 



Tarsus and foot coral-red. 



Claws brown or black; sometimes black with brown tip. 



Stomach always contained isopod crustaceans, rolled up into balls. 



Young, when first fledged, is yellow-brown, spotted irregularly with 

 black; its bill, toes, and tarsus dirty-orange, blackening toward tips. 

 Later, the colors grow darker, feet and tarsi becoming orange-red. The 

 young is as large as a chick, and as unlike the adult as possible. 



JEJgg is single; of a brownish-green, blotched irregularly with black; 

 pointed at small end; and measures 1.78 by 1.22 inches. 



This pretty and fearless little tern was, perhaps, the most familiar object 

 on the island; several of them being always to be seen during daylight 

 winnowing the air over the masses of kelp {Macrocystis pyrifera) which 

 covered the waters of the bay by the station. They dive readily from 

 a considerable height in the air, rarely missing their mark, a good-sized 

 isopod crustacean, which seemed to constitute their sole diet. During 

 the pairing-season (October), they remind one forcibly of the common 

 sparrow ; curveting around one another, with wings half-spread, and 

 constantly chattering. They are very bold, showing scarcely any fear of 

 man, and excited much the same kindly regard in all of us as the robin 

 and such familiar birds do at home. 



They nest on rather high and broken ground, usually under the lee of 

 a tuft of grass, and with little or no preparation. Sometimes a few dried 

 stalks are laid together in the bottom of a barely perceptible cavity; 

 oftener a tuft of dead azorella-leaves, found ready to hand, serves their 

 turn. An egg was first found November 7, very early in the laying- 

 season, owing to the excessive solicitude of the old bird, which flew at 

 me as I passed with amazing ferocity, snapping her bill, screaming, and 

 making a curious sound, very like the "gritting" of teeth. Had she 

 kept quiet, I should not have observed the egg at all. On November 

 10 I note that many pairs had selected nesting-places, but had not yet 

 begun to lay. A young bird was first found December 4, so like the 

 ground in color that I was near stepping on it. It is very large and 

 heavy, and unlike the adult. On December 11, I got two young biixis, 

 and shot the old one belonging, as I supposed, to one of them. I must, 



