| 573. Anoüs stolidus | Vol. VII. Pl. 34. |
“The large Noddy,” says Mr. M’Gillivray, “is abundantly distributed over Torres’ Straits, but I never met with it to the southward of Raine’s Islet, on which, as at Bramble Key, it was found breeding in prodigious numbers. Unlike its constant associate, the Sooty Tern, it constructs a shallow nest of small twigs arranged in a slovenly manner, over which are strewed about a handful of fragments of coral from the beach, shells, and occasionally portions of tortoise-shell and bones of turtle. The nest is sometimes placed upon the ground, but more usually upon tufts of grass and other herbage, at about a foot from the ground.”
| 574. Anoüs melanops, Gould | Vol. VII. Pl. 35. |
| 575. Anoüs leucocapillus, Gould | Vol. VII. Pl. 36. |
| 576. Anoüs cinereus, Gould | Vol. VII. Pl. 37. |
Family PROCELLARIDÆ, Bonap.
There is perhaps no group of birds respecting which so much confusion exists and the extent of whose range over the ocean is so little known, as that forming the present family.
Having, as I have before stated, paid much attention to these birds during my voyages to and from Australia and in its neighbourhood, my researches were rewarded by my obtaining a knowledge of at least forty different species, nearly all of which are peculiar to the seas of the southern hemisphere. The powers of flight with which these birds are endowed are perfectly astonishing: they appear to be constantly performing migrations round the globe from west to east; and Australia lying in their tract, all the species may be found near its shores at one or other season of the year.
It is but natural to suppose that this great group of birds has been created for some especial purpose, and may we not infer that they have been placed in the Southern Ocean to prevent an undue increase of the myriads of mollusks and other low marine animals with which those seas abound, and upon which all the Procellaridæ mainly subsist?
Genus Diomedea, Linn.
Of this genus, which comprises among its members the largest of the Oceanic birds, three species range over the North Pacific Ocean; and six others the seas southward of the equator.
| 577. Diomedea exulans, Linn. | Vol. VII. Pl. 38. |