CHAPTER IX 



WHERE THE BLACK TERN BUILDS 



The little village of Worth lies just beyond the smoke of 

 factory-filled Chicago. It is on the marshes of Worth that 

 the black terns build their nests; it is in the thorn thickets 

 that hedge the pastures that the loggerhead shrikes make 

 their homes; the rails, the redwings, and the wrens haunt the 

 reedy swamps; and the hawks and the crows live in the heavy 

 timber. Outside of a race-track and the many birds that 

 flock in its fields, Worth has few attractions to offer. The 

 race-track draws thousands of people daily for a short season, 

 but the birds' visitors are few. In no other place, perhaps, 

 so near the great city, could the black terns nest in peace. 

 Certain it is that Worth is the only place readily accessible to 

 the city bird-student where these "soft-breasted birds of the 

 sea" may be found during the season of courtship and house- 

 keeping. Black terns are abundant in the shop windows and 

 upon the hats of thoughtless women. The shop birds and the 

 bonnet birds are wired and twisted into positions of grotesque 

 ugliness. There never was a line of beauty in the stuffed bird 

 of a milliner. Would that woman could see it! The black 

 terns of Worth are living; the sweep of their wings is as 

 graceful as are the curving blades of the swamp flags. There 

 is a price upon the head of the black tern because the milliner 

 covets the bird that it may be used as a means for a second 

 temptation of woman. Neither the black tern of Worth nor 

 the Wilson's tern nesting in northern Wisconsin can long sur- 



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