VIRGINIA BIRD HOMES 121 



" PARTIES OK SKIMMERS WERE ELVINci AKOUT" 



my ear, a veritable shriek, loud enough to startle one greatly, 

 if taken unawares. More often the cry was a reiteration of 

 sounds which reminded me of the violent sobbing of a child, 

 made by drawing in the breath. They were anxious about 

 their eggs ; indeed it would sound as though they were 

 fairly heart-broken. If they really suffered as much as their 

 curious remonstrance seemed to imply, I should have felt posi- 

 tively guilty in subjecting them to such outrageous indignity 

 by prying into their domestic privacy and happiness. I called 

 them "the sobbing birds," and they darted about and sobbed 

 their hearts away as long as I stayed near their nests. As 

 they " sobbed," I could see their bills, like pairs of great 

 shears, open and shut, as though, in flying by, they would 

 snip off my ears. Flying low over the water, they seem to 

 shear it as they quickly, in passing, pick up fish or other 

 marine creatures from the surface. 



To photograph them in flight successfully requires a 



