GREY NODDY. 
Nestlings. “ Are almost the same colour as the parent bird ” (Metcalfe). 
Nest. None : the eggs are laid on the bare rock or sand. 
Egg. Clutch, one ; ground-colour stone, with underlying spots of grey sparingly distri- 
buted, and fewer spots of chestnut-brown ; axis 42 mm., diameter 30. 
Breeding -season. November (Bennett, Norfolk Island) ; September to January (Metcalfe, 
Norfolk Island). 
Bennett* says this species inhabits Norfolk and Nepean Islands, but is more 
numerous on the latter. They lay their egg on the shelves of rocks, upon 
which they place some roots and grass as a rude kind of nest. 
Also writing on this species from Norfolk Island, Metcalfef says they are 
fairly numerous during the breeding-season: ‘‘The eggs are usually placed 
on inaccessible ledges, but often on the sands, sometimes not many feet above 
the sea, but usually at from 80 to 2,000 feet. They make no attempt at a nest, 
and lay only one egg, which is the most easily broken of all the sea birds’ eggs 
found in these islands. These birds do not, as a rule, lay in colonies, but here 
and there, like the larger Noddy, though sometimes one comes across a number 
close together on the sand. These Terns are not tame, and cannot be taken 
off the nests like A. mdanogenys. I have taken the eggs as early as the 26th 
of September, but I think they begin to lay sooner, and I found an egg incu- 
bated on Phillip Island on June (January) 15th, so that the breeding-period 
extends from September to January for certain. The birds frequent these 
islands all the year round.” 
Mr. Tom Iredale found this bird breeding on the Kermadec Islands. On 
February 29th he noticed many flying young on Meyer Island where a medium 
sized colony bred. The birds were observed in fair numbers on August 3rd, 
but no eggs noted. On November 12th at Macaulay Island, and on the 13th, 
at Curtis Island, hard-set eggs were seen. 
Cheeseman, also from these Islands, writes : “ Small flocks of them would 
every now then leave their resting-places, fly backwards and forwards over 
our heads, noisily screaming aU the time, and then return to their quarters, to 
be quickly imitated by another party. They were quite tame, allowing us to 
approach within a few feet. On discharging a gun, clouds of them rose in the 
air, circling and wheeling about in the utmost confusion, but they soon quieted 
down. They were also plentiful on Macaulay Island ; and it was pretty to 
look from the cliff at the extreme western point of the Island, which is allhost 
700 ft. in height, and see large colonies of them quietly basking in the sun on 
inaccessible ledges, hundreds of feet below the spectator. No nest whatever 
is made, the single egg being deposited in a slight natural hollow.” 
* Gath. Naturalist, p. 241, 1860. 
t Ibis, 1885, p. 265. 
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