EAST AUSTRALIAN WHISKERED TERN. 
Mr. Belcher tells me this species is a regular visitor to Geelong, in Victoria : 
“ They arrive in October and leave in the autumn. In the western district 
it is resident aU through the year on some of the better-protected lakes on 
private property, and it is interesting to recall that Terrinallum, a weU-known 
property at Darlington, takes its name from this bird, which was called by the 
blacks of the Colac tribe ‘ Djerinallum.’ Of recent years the Whiskered Tern 
has been a common summer visitor to the marshes close to Melbourne in the 
West, from the Salt Water to near Werribee. Whether these birds, and those 
which appear about the same time in the Geelong district, come from the 
Murray river-system or from the Western lakes, is not yet clear, but it is 
more hkely to be from the latter, as the intervening country would suit 
them better to travel over. 
“In December, 1901, I found a nesting-colony on Lake Reedy, a marsh 
of some thousands of acres on the north side of the Barwon River. But the 
rats had destroyed all the eggs, only shells being found in the nests.” 
The following* is the account of a breeding-colony at Yandenbah, in New 
South Wales, written by the man who collected the eggs in my collection. 
After finding, on October 31st, a breeding- place of this species, Bennett writes : 
“ About a week previously, when riding around this swamp, I was led to the 
conclusion that these birds intended breeding there, as numbers were flying 
about above the water, whilst many others were perched on the slender tops 
of the dwarf Polygonum bushes, which projected a few inches above the water, 
and I also noticed that several of the birds flying about were carrying rushes in 
their bills. I made a careful search at the time, but beyond finding a few green 
rushes placed in a loose, careless manner on the top of one of the Polygonum 
bushes, I saw nothing else to indicate that it was a contemplated breeding site. 
On visiting the place to-day, I observed numbers of the birds on the tops of 
the bushes, but not more than one on each bush, whilst numbers were also 
flying about hi an excited manner, and as I neared the edge of the swamp, 
kept up a continuous croaking. On wading in for a closer examination, I found 
that each bird was sitting on a nest (if nest such a structure could be called) 
each of which contained one to three eggs, the latter number apparently being 
the full set. These nests were simply a few green rushes, in most cases quite 
flat, and the whole structure rising and falling with the motion of the water, 
caused by a shght breeze, and it was a mystery to me how the birds managed 
to leave, or return to, the nests, without knocking the eggs off. Although 
this swamp is of considerable extent and similar throughout, the breeding 
place was confined to a space of not more than twenty yards square, showing 
that hke Sterna anglica {^nacrotarsa^ they breed in companies.” 
* K. H. Bennett in Austr. Mus. Cat, No. 12, p. 402, 1890. 
VOL. II. 
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