THE OSPREY. 



21 



case with all our warblers, five are some- 

 times laid. Those I have seen have been 

 subject to little variation in size, the 

 averag-e being- about .59 inches by .50 

 inches. In marking-s the eg-g"S, as mig-ht 

 be expected, vary to a larg-e extent, not so 

 much in the color as in the distribution. 

 The ground color is a delicate white, 

 marked with dots of brownish red, some- 

 times so thickly as almost to conceal the 

 g-round color, being- thickest in an irreg-- 

 ular ring- around the larg-er end. A 

 distinguishing- feature of the eg-g-s of this 

 bird, when compared with those of other 

 Warblers, is a marked scarcity of blotches. 

 In fact, I have never seen any that could 

 be called anything- but slig-htly blurred, 

 the predominant marking-s being- a few 

 spots about half the size of the head of 

 an ordinary pin and many others very 

 much smaller. 



This bird shows more than usual cour- 

 ag-e while covering her treasures, allow- 

 ing- one to approach within two or three 

 feet before leaving-, even after she knows 

 she has been discovered and is being- 

 closely examined. She then hops onto 

 the edg-e of the nest, stays for an instant, 

 and then flies within an inch or two of the 

 ground to quite a distance; where she 

 remains, expostulating- b}- means of a 

 soft "chip" repeated at intervals of eig-ht 

 or ten seconds, from the top of the neig-h- 

 boring- trees. 



In an instance mentioned to me by Mr. 

 Oliver Durfee, of Fall River, Mass., the 

 bird to one nest he found acted rather 

 differently. He flushed her twice and 

 each time she flew at once into the top of 

 a tree. Otherwise her actions were simi- 

 lar to the above description. 



A Tern Study, 



BY REV. P. B. PEABODY, ST. VINCENT, MINN. 



(CONTINUED. 



The Terns sit closely. As one stands 

 upon a huge rat house of rushes, a house 

 that is perhaps ten feet in diameter and 

 four feet hig-h, he may see the white 

 forms of man}" sitting- birds, even at mid- 

 day, in the warmest of sunlig-ht, flecking- 

 the sides and summits of many a house, 

 on all sides of him. Then, as a troop of 

 the Gulls pass by, swooping- down at the 

 sitting- Terns, often, I think, with sheer 

 purpose of torment, the birds on the 

 houses, with upraised heads, shriek out 

 piercing choruses of shrill and ang-ry 

 scolding- notes, and, almost as frequently, 

 they scold the too familiarly passing- 

 birds of their own kind. These and 

 many other marks of incessant warfare 

 tell their own story. 



As to the four-footed enemies, one 

 must judg-e rather from the finding- of 

 dead birds — young- and old — than from 

 the discovery of the shattered eg-gs. I 

 have found, to g-ive but a single instance, 

 a mother Tern sitting- on a rat house 

 dead, beside her dead young-, each throt- 

 tled and blood sucked from slig-ht neck 

 wounds. Here is undoubtedly mink 

 havoc. But I have found on a rat house, 

 far from land, a coot thus killed, but 

 worse mang-led; and this season, at least 



a quarter of a mile from shore, I chanced 

 to find, while searching- for an Ibis nest, 

 a trio of Western Grebe, about one 

 fourth g-rown, dragg-ed into an empty 

 Heron nest, two of them being- half eaten 

 while the third had but a sing-le wound 

 in the neck, so slig-ht that the bird made 

 a well-nig-h perfect specimen for my cab- 

 inet. This sort of destruction is, I am 

 sure, attributed to the Musk-rats, who 

 are by no means the rigid veg-etarians 

 they are generally held to be. There 

 are reasons, of which I shall have more 

 to say in a different connection, for be- 

 lieving- that the half-g-rown Nig-ht Her- 

 ons pray upon unprotected young- Terns, 

 picking them up for themselves after be- 

 ginning- to venture out, on their own 

 "hooks," in search of additional food to 

 fill their enormously capacious maws. 

 (The crop and the gape of a young- 

 Nig-ht Heron are the big-g-est part of 

 him!) However that may be, this much 

 is certain: In case of the Herons, the 

 hatred which the Terns bear toward the 

 fathers is certainly visited upon the 

 children. More than once I have stopped 

 short in the middle of a deep quag-mire 

 and laug-hed outrig-ht to hear and see a 

 flying Tern swoop ang-rily down upon a 



