SUPPLEMENT—BIRDS OF NORFOLK & LORD HOWE ISLANDS, ETC. 
Clutches of two and three were fairly uniform ; clutches of four almost 
invariably had at least one egg of another type ; clutches of five sometimes had 
three types. It seemed that birds did not always lay in their own nests and that 
two or three was the normal clutch, the average number being three. By 
January 21st about ninety per cent, of the eggs had hatched. Three old birds 
v r ere leading some sixty white fluffy chicks to the water, and had difficulty 
in enticing them to enter. The young at the nests, on being approached, rushed 
about from one nest to another, not altogether, but singly. At times there 
would be as many as fifteen or twenty chicks in a nest. 
When the young one leaves the shell it is covered with pure white down, 
with black beak, eyes and legs. 
The chick will run up and cluster round the feet of an observer, rendering 
walking very difficult. At one long halt about 200 of them so nestled. With 
regard to the birds touching the ground or eggs before settling on the 
nest, it appears that sometimes the beak touched the ground and at others 
just went close to it, but at all times the beak was well in front of the nest, an 
inch or two. 
Apparently the adults sit on any nest, as sometimes a bird apparently 
contented, would get up and settle on another. There are no vacant nests after 
the birds settle. When settling the bird just lifts the wings a little and appears 
to draw the clutch into position as she closes them. If there are too many young 
ones in the nest to cover, the adult flicks the surplus out with her beak and they 
promptly scuttle for another nest. 
The little things have no balance and cannot run more than two or three feet 
without toppling over on their heads. The authors go on to point out that this 
is the only bird of its kind which lays a white shelled egg and had an all pure 
white chick. They also consider the reason the eggs have not before been 
collected to be that the birds lay on islands in large lakes of the ulterior, which 
are filled at irregular and infrequent intervals. These lakes are not frequented 
by man, and the few who do live there would not care for a long wade of a mile 
or so through mud and water often knee deep, to examine what may be a barren 
island. 
In the Emu, Vol. XXNI., pt. i., p. 63, pis. 16 and 17, Howe has figured and 
described some of these eggs. See also loc. sit., p. 271, April, 1932. 
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