WIDEAWAKE FAIR. 
105 
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“WIDEAWAKE FAIR.” 
HILE at Ascension I visited •“ Wideawake Fair,” a 
description of which will, 1 am sure, interest your 
readers. 
The wide awake (Sterna is a kind of sea fuligiiwsa), 
swallow a graceful black-and-white bird about as big as a 
dove, but more slender in the body, with long pointed wings, a 
long black beak and small webbed feet. Their eggs, which are 
mottled like a gull’s, are out of all proportion to their bodies, 
being nearly, if not quite, as big as an ordinary hen’s egg. The 
eggs are very good eating. It happened to be just the very 
height of the breeding season when we were there, which was 
a stroke of good luck, so we started off, preceded by a marine 
to put us on the way, and after a four-mile walk over pulverised 
brick dust and extra roughened clinkers, warranted to tear any 
boots to ribbons in twenty minutes, we arrived at a ridge over- 
looking a barren valley, the upper portion of which was rocky, 
and appeared to be strewn with white pebbles, while the lower 
portion consisted of a flat sandy track apparently scattered over 
with black stones. Here we were met by a few stray wide- 
awakes, who came flying round our heads, screaming and peck- 
ing at us, and hitting us with their wings. As we went on they 
got more and more numerous until we reached the speckled 
ground I have mentioned, which proved to be the laying ground 
of the wideawakes, the white on their bodies showing up against 
the dark rocks, and the black against the white sand. I cannot 
attempt to estimate their numbers ; the ground was simply 
covered with them and their eggs, which were laid on the bare 
rock or sand, with no attempt at any kind of nest, at intervals 
of certainly not more than a yard apart. Ten thousand dozen 
fresh eggs have been collected in a single week, which will 
perhaps give you some idea of their numbers. On each egg sat 
a wideawake, indignantly refusing to move, but screaming and 
pecking at our hands or our boots when we attempted to turn 
them. How they manage to hide their large eggs beneath their 
little bodies I do not understand, nor do I see what earthly use 
it can be for them to sit upon them at all, especially during the 
day, when it can add but little, if anything, to the warmth of 
the sun. I suppose, however, that it is really to protect them 
from the sun, the direct rays of which would probably be more 
likely to roast than hatch the chicken. 
If you walk through them rapidly, so that they must either 
move or run the risk of being trodden on, they rise round you in 
a perfect cloud, flapping you with their wings, and pecking at 
you so that you have to protect your face with your hands. 
They are not allowed to be killed, so that they are utterly 
fearless. You can pick them up in your hand, or threaten them 
with a stick ; they are exceedingly indignant, but not the least 
frightened. The chickens, which are like little grey fluffy balls, 
