ANOUS. 
359 
where Mr. Macgillivray found it breeding in great numbers during 
1862. The nest is composed of small twigs and seaweed and is 
placed on the top of a bush, at other times upon the sand, it 
never contains more than a single egg. Like all the Toms’ eggs 
they are extremely variable in their markings, the most usual 
variety found is of a creamy-white ground colour, with clouded 
spots and blotches of chestnut-red and faint bluish-grey, the latter 
colour appearing as if beneath the shell’s surface ; these markings 
are more thickly disposed towards the larger end of the egg, and 
in some specimens form an irregular zone. The average length 
of a number of specimens is 1-98 x 1 *39 inch. 
A specimen in the Macleayan Museum Collection taken on 
Bramble Cay on the 13th of August 1875, measures 2T inches by 
l - 47 inch. 
Halt. Port Darwin and Port Essington, Gulf of Carpentaria, 
Cape York, ltockingham Day, Port Denison, Wide Bay District, 
Richmond and Clarence Rivers Districts, New South Wales, 
Victoria and South Australia, West and South-West Australia, 
South Coast New Guinea. (Ramsay.) 
ANOUS TENUIROSTRIS, Temminck. 
(A. melanops, Gould.) 
The Lesser Noddy. 
Gould, Ilandbk. J3ds. Aust., Vol. ii., sp. 614, p. 417. 
Gilbert found this species breeding in great numbers on South 
Island, lloutmann’s Abrolhos, forming a nest of'Seaweed on the 
branches of the mangroves and placed at a height of from four to 
ten feet from the ground. “ Like its near ally, A. slolidus, it 
commences the task of incubation in December, and lays but a 
single egg. The egg is of a pale stone or cream colour, marked 
all over with large irregular-shaped blotches of dull chestnut-red 
and dark brown, the latter colour appearing as if beneath the 
surface of the shell; the blotches are thinly dispersed except at 
the larger end, where they are largest and most numerous ; it is 
