Viewing page 77 of 125

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

^[[18a]]

3. The Black Noddy nests on cliff ledges at all its breeding stations in the Atlantic (except in the British Honduras (Salvin)) but in the Pacific and Indian Oceans it usually nests on the branches of [[strikethrough]] bushes and, [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] trees. Unlike its relative, the Brown Noddy, it seems never to nest on flat ground, though sometimes resorting to low bushes in the absence of anything better (Munro). (Wilson & Evans were informed by Palmer, Rothschild's collector, that in Laysan, Lisiansky and Midway the species laid its egg on the sand like the Brown Noddy, but a photo in Rothschild's Birds of Laysan shows the birds nesting in bushes. In any case several recent papers ^[[dealing with]] [[strikethrough]] covering [[/strikethrough]] this area make no mention of the habit and refer only to cliff-, [[strikethrough]] or [[/strikethrough]] tree- or bush-nesting. Richardson & Fisher, Munro, Fisher & Baldwin, Fisher, Richardson)  

There appears to be a further difference between the Black and Brown Noddies, namely in the nest itself. That of [[underlined]] stolidus [[/underlined]] varies from a few straws or shells to substantial pile of twigs or seaweed, but is never more than a rather shapeless pile of material, with a slight hollow on top. The nest of [[underlined]] tenuirostris [[/underlined]] however is ^[[generally]] more compact, composed mainly of seaweed or the leaves of trees, and is plastered with droppings. Of 26 apparently independent accounts of the nests of [[underlined]] tenuirostris [[/underlined]] in the literature, 14 [[strikethrough]] specifically [[/strikethrough]] particularly mention that the nest material is cemented together with excrement, and 2 others show it in a photo without remarking on it. On the other hand of 34 accounts of the nests of [[underlined]] stolidus [[/underlined]] only two mention the presence of droppings (Gilbert, quoted by Gould, and Bryan). It would seem therefore that [[underlined]] tenuirostris [[/underlined]] defaecates on its nest more than [[underlined]] stolidus [[/underlined]]. Has the habit perhaps become an integral