. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. 2oS THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM The Reef at Lord Howe Island encloses a broad shallow lagoon. [Plioto.â,1. /,'. MrCiiUorh. otliers, because, as no actual nest is built, any surface flat enough to rest the egg upon seems to be all that is required. As the month goes by the terns become more and more numerous, and, when the chickens make their appearance, the ground is covered with a living mass. Walking among them, one must tread warily to avoid crushing a young bird or an egg under foot, A\'hile clouds of their distracted ])arents fly clo
. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. 2oS THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM The Reef at Lord Howe Island encloses a broad shallow lagoon. [Plioto.â,1. /,'. MrCiiUorh. otliers, because, as no actual nest is built, any surface flat enough to rest the egg upon seems to be all that is required. As the month goes by the terns become more and more numerous, and, when the chickens make their appearance, the ground is covered with a living mass. Walking among them, one must tread warily to avoid crushing a young bird or an egg under foot, A\'hile clouds of their distracted ])arents fly close above ones head, screaming and chattering, and occasionally SMOoping down to peck at the intruder. The egg of the Wideawake is ex- cellent eating, and, though the yolk is richly coloured, it lacks that fishy flavour which is common to most sea- bird's eggs. Great ({uantities of them are collected for the table by the resi- dents of the island during the early part of each season, but, as each bird robbed of its egg soon lays another, the numbers are not diminished. The eggs are beautifully mottled and blotched with brown, and no t^^'() appear exactly alike. Maybe each l)ird recognises its OAvn by the marking u})on it, though experiments have shoAvn that its ])osi- tion is largely the parent's guiding feature. What ha})]iens when a crowd of similarly marked chicks are dis- turbed l\y some intruder can only be left to the imagination, for they scramble off in every direction and become hopelessly confused as they jostle and tumble over one another in their frantic efforts to hide. '{'he chickens develop rapidly, chan- ging from little balls of fluffy down to fledglings with a sooty black plumage speckled with white. When they are ready to fly their parents encourage them seaward and introduce them to the stern realities of their future lives. They are taught the art of fishing and of battling with adveise winds and ^\â aves. But they return to their rocky homes at nightfall,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
