Page:The Emu volume 2.djvu/239

 (Spur-winged Plover).—Occasionally seen.

(Red-capped Dottrel).

(Hooded Dottrel).—Plentiful on the sandy beaches and also found around some of the lagoons. Newly-hatched young were seen during the second week in November. With striped downy coats, when planting alongside some bit of seaweed they are easily passed by.

(Curlew). Doubtless several other wading birds could be recorded during an extended residence on King Island.

(Caspian Tern).—In 1887 the Field Naturalists' expedition, while on the east coast, shot a Caspian Tern, and also took its eggs. To this day the other bird lives alone at the same spot where it was bereaved of mate and progeny at one fell stroke. Probably they were the only birds of this species about the island.

(Crested Tern).

(Silver Gull).—A colony of these birds' nests yearly on a rock standing in Currie Harbour, on the west coast. They begin laying in November. Some years, when robbed by the local residents of their fresh eggs, they depart en masse to a reserve rookery further north.

(Pacific Gull).—This terror of all smaller sea birds, and shore birds too, is seen in all its stages from the mottled brown and grey of the immature plumage to the brilliant white of the adult, relieved by black wings and back, this being assumed when three years old. An unusual spectacle of a bird flying backwards was seen one day when a Pacific Gull on rounding a point met with a strong breeze, and with its wings still moving was driven backward.

(White-bellied Storm Petrel).

(Allied Petrel).

(Short-tailed Petrel).—When on shipboard about the latitude of Wilson Promontory, at 6 a.m. one morning in November, thousands of Mutton-Birds were seen flying out to westward for the day.

(Dove-Petrel).

(Black Cormorant).

(White-breasted Cormorant).

(Gannet).—A graceful diver.


 * (Tippet Grebe).—Occasionally seen on lagoons.


 * (Hoary-headed Grebe).—Seen on lagoons.

(Crested Penguin).

(Little Penguin).

(Black Swan).—Common.

(Black Duck).—Common.

(Teal).—This and the preceding species find much of their food in the kelp on the seashore, and in the shallow water among rocks. They also frequent inland lagoons in company with the other swimmers enumerated, all of which nest on the island.


 * (Shoveller).