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as the bird covers them nearly up on leaving it, which she does 

 so slyly as never to be seen. The young ones just hatched, little 

 black creatures, striped narrowly and lengthwise with white, 

 white underneath, and marked with reddish about the head, will 

 scramble from the nest before they can be seen ; and notwith- 

 standing their distinct peeping, are found with difficulty among 

 the sedges and rushes. Now if you will hide away, you may 

 hear the mother call the little ones with a gentle clucking, and 

 see them gather around her on the water, perhaps mounting on 

 her back or hiding under her wings. She will even dive with 

 them under her wings on an emergency. 



A very conspicuous bird about the Flats, and one breeding in 

 considerable numbers, is the black tern, Hydrochelidon lariformis. 

 Arriving about the middle of May, its black body, with silvery 

 wings and tail and white crissum, appears in constant flight. 

 Its nest is a crude arrangement of bits of rushes, sedges or debris 

 in general, on a floating board or slab, or on an accumulation 

 of debris anchored among sedges and rushes ; the whole affair 

 being often thoroughly soaked through with water. The dark 

 greenish drab eggs, two to three, heavily spotted and blotched 

 with black or dark brown, conform so closely in general effect 

 with the nest and surroundings that they are by no means read- 

 ily detected. The bird has an almost constant note, softer and 

 more musical than that of the common tern ; but when the 

 breeding places are approached — for like other birds of its kind, 

 it breeds in community — it becomes very noisy, and may be a 

 great nuisance when one is intent on observing other birds. 



The common tern and Forster's tern spend the summer here 

 in moderate numbers, laying their eggs on the muskrat-houses, 

 in the absence of those sandy and rocky shores which are their 

 usual accommodation. The eggs are almost indistinguishable, 

 those of Forster's tern being, perhaps, a little the larger. The 

 birds are fairly distinguishable by their voices, that of Forster's 

 tern being hoarser and in a lower tone than that of the com- 

 mon tern. In color, too, they are in some respects the counter- 

 parts of each other ; the tail of Forster's tern being light silvery 



