THE nun) h'OOKEh'lES OF J.Al'SAN. 



327 



(he vouiig liavi- I'lillv iittniiu'd llicir adult itluina.m' aixl are capable of; 

 sustained flight. Then tlie whoU' great host takes wing into the un- 

 known, literally so; for, so far as 1 can Icani 



'I'diii 



to 



his species, Diomedea 

 in man ken for al)out 

 >()me evideiic',' that it 



Fig. 11. Hovering with Gracffui- Poise 

 LIKE IMJIE.NSE White Butterflies. 



iiiniiiitabilis Eoth, absolutely disapjn'ars 

 two months of each year. There seeln^ 

 betakes itself to the Arctic seas. 

 Th(> apparent obliteration of this 

 vast swarm of birds for a definite 

 period annually is a mystery still to 

 be solved. In jSTovember the birds 

 arrive at Laysan as suddenly as 

 they departed, and at once begin to 

 prepare for domestic responsibili- 

 ties. During the ten months annu- 

 ally spent there they do not appear 

 to wander far from their breeding grounds. Indeed our vessel did 

 not encounter them so far to the eastward as the main Hawaiian group. 

 Great as is the multitude of albatrosses and conspicuous as they 

 are on account of their size, the terns of five or six species greatly 

 exceed them in number, probably forming more than half of the entire 

 bird population of the island. The clamor that greets the intruder 

 in one of these immense tern rookeries is simply appalling, the air 

 fairly quivering with their ear-splitting shrieks as they circle in clouds 

 around his head and dash savagely directly at his face in their fierce 



endeavor to drive him away. 

 There were probably hundreds 

 of bushels of eggs of these birds 

 at the time of our visit. The 

 most numerous terns are the 

 'black-backed' and 'gray-backed' 

 wideawakes, of which there must 

 be millions, nesting among the 

 bushes and tufts of grass, par- 

 ticularly on the southern end of 

 the island. The vegetation grows 

 right in the dazzling white coral 

 sand, which appears as white as 

 snow in the photographs. 

 One of the most exquisitely beautiful birds that the writer has ever 

 seen is a small tern known locally as the 'love bird,' pure white with 

 large black eyes and bill. They have the habit of hovering with grace- 

 ful poise over the intruder, like immense white butterflies, silently 

 inspecting one as if impelled by a mild curiosity rather than resent- 



FlG. 12. KOOKRRY OF ' LOVE BlRDS. 



