65 
Nesting-places of Gannets and Terns . 
a swarm of bees over a hive, and the noise they made could 
be heard a long way off. 
The island is about half a mile long by a quarter of a mile 
wide, and two places in the centre of it had been selected as 
nesting-stations by the Sooty Terns (Sterna fuliginosa and 
S. aneestheta) . All, or nearly all, these birds had young, and 
their serried masses hid the ground, while, as you approached, 
the chicks ran away or opened out to let you pass, and the 
effect was like a moving black carpet. I only walked on the 
outskirts of this throng of birds, but that was quite enough, 
for the old birds literally mobbed me, striking me repeatedly 
with their wings and shrieking in a most deafening manner. 
So fearless were they that one could catch them by the hand 
as fast as one liked. 
The ground here was bare of herbage; but close round the 
outside of the colony long coarse grass grew abundantly, 
and this was alive with Noddies (Anous stolidus), all with 
nestlings or hard-set eggs. These birds were even more 
pugnacious than the Sooty Terns. All three species lay 
only one egg; at least I never saw more than one egg or 
young bird in a nest. 
Dotted about the rest of the island could be seen Gannets 
(,Sula cyanops and S. leucogastra) sitting on their nests, off 
which they had to be pushed with a stick; they fought 
savagely, and repeatedly struck the stick with beak and wings, 
hissing loudly. They had all hard-set eggs or young. Some 
nests contained two eggs, but I invariably found one of these 
to be infertile or rotten, while there never was more than one 
young bird in a nest. 
Just above the shingle at one corner of the island a colony 
of Roseate Terns (Sterna dougalli) were nesting, their eggs 
being in all stages of incubation. These had sometimes three, 
two, or one egg, and at first I thought that where there 
were only one or two eggs they would prove fresh, but such 
was not the case. Nearly all the eggs of these birds were 
fertile. The nests were close together, and very few had 
young. 
Not far from the Roseate Terns there was a small colony 
ser. vn.— VOL. VI. F 
