36 
AN AUSTRALIAN RTRD BOOK. 
Being powerful flyers, it is not surprising to find that several 
of the Austrnlinn Terns nre really Old-World, and even New- 
World, forms too. Thus the Whiskered (Marsh) Tern is also 
British. The Caspian, Gull-billed, and Bridled (Brown- winged) 
Terns are British and American, v/hile the Sooty Tern is found 
in all tropical and sub-tropical seas. It is one of the famous 
birds of the world, for it is the "egg bird" of sailors. It retires 
in large companies to low scrubby islands to breed. Here it lays 
a single egg on the bare ground. Sailors, tired of ship's fare, 
often visit these **rookeries." Gould quotes a record of one party 
which took 1500 dozen eggs on one small island in Torres Strait. 
Spanish eggers from Havanah take cargoes, which are disposed of 
at 25 cents per gallon. 
The Wide-Awake Fair, of Ascension Island, is a famous 
annual event in natural history. A similar scene has been 
described by Mr. A. W. Milligan, the well-known West Australian 
ornithologist, on the Houtman Abrolhos Island, west of Western 
Australia. Here acres of the ground were covered by birds 
sitting on their nests. The question is, does each find its own nest 
when it returns to sit? Mr. Milligan settled this in the affirma- 
tive by tying a piece of string to a sitting bird and then letting it 
take flight. It found its own egg, and resumed its work. It is 
noteworthy that no two of the million eggs are similarly 
marked, and this puzzling variation in marking probably assists 
each bird to recognize its own egg. 
One of the daintiest of these birds is the Fairy Tern, which 
was common on Mud Island while the 1909 Summer School was 
being held. Obedient to the call of the mother bird, which 
hovered threateningly overhead, the mottled and striped young 
one squatted on the shelly sand beach while bird-lovers hunted 
around for the material for a photograph. At length the dark 
eye revealed the beautifully-protected young bird. 
As the camera was being fixed, a different call from the mother 
caused the young one to run away. Three or four naturalists 
tried to catch the active little bird, which stopped for a moment 
and disgorged two whole small fish, with which its mother had 
evidently but recently fed it. Eventually a good picture was 
obtained. These Terns nest singly, though others nest in, large 
companies. They obtain fish by diving into the sea. It was 
interesting, on a Nature-study excursion, to watch the Crested 
Terns diving frequently into the sea above a shoal of small fish 
at Sandringham. 
We found the Noddies breeding in thousands on Mast Head 
Island, in the Capricorn Group. They built a small platform 
of leaves, or seaweed, high or low, on every possible nesting site 
on the great Pisonia trees. In fact, there is an interesting kind 
of partnership between the bird and the tree. The fruits of the 
Pisonia have bands of sticky glands, which adhere to the plumage 
of the birds. After a time the fruits fall off, possibly on another 
island, and so this interesting tree is spread throughout these 
small coral sandbanks and islets. The birds are sometimes so 
