2o6 



Bird -Lore 



Presently some of the Gulls began to hover about the more distant nests, 

 generally making a false start or two before venturing to alight. Then one 

 by one they dropped upon the edges of the nests, twitched their wings for a 

 couple of moments as if to fix them smoothly in position, and remained for 

 a time erect and alert; at last, becoming sufficiently reassured, they settled 

 down upon their eggs, so that little more than their black heads and snowy 

 necks appeared above the grass-tops. Meanwhile, some of the others, singly 

 or in pairs, swam on the pool with the peculiar feathery lightness that so often 

 arouses our admiration in a Gull, whether awing or afloat. 



Two birds, at length, commenced to fly closer and closer to the nest in 

 front of the blind, and, at the end of three-quarters of an hour or thereabouts, 



XEST AND EGGS OF LAUGHING GULL 



one of them (probably the female) alighted. Though frightened away more 

 than once, either by the movements of my companion at the other end of the 

 colony or by the noisy release of my focal-plane shutter, she returned without 

 undue delay and began to incubate. I now had opportunity not only to expose 

 plate after plate, but to observe at leisure the Laughing Gull's graceful sym- 

 metry and its rare beauty of plumage. Its dark reddish bill, black head and 

 white-bordered eye, snow-white neck and breast, and pearl-gray, black- 

 tipped wings, show to particular advantage in -an autochrome exposed for 

 four seconds on the motionless bird. 



At a loud outcry from the sitting Gull, I peeped through a slit in the tent 

 in time to catch a momentary glimpse of a skulking Clapper Rail, whose 



