Fu'cds and Bushes. 



27 



square miles, and was completely overgrown with rushes ; 

 at a distance it looked like a great field of deep waving 

 green, over which flitted and hovered in little companies 

 thousands of graceful marsh terns, appearing sometimes 

 dark and sometimes bright as they twisted and turned in 

 the sunlight. 



We hastened through the marshy ground, disturbing as 

 we did so stilts and redshanks, which flew round us uttering 



Fig. 10.- Floating Nest of Whiskered Tern. 



loud alarm notes. Soon we were brushing aside the rushes, 

 which were shoulder high, and wading up to our knees, 

 and often to our waists, through the tepid water. 



We came upon a colony of terns ; some rose from their 

 nests and flew round us much agitated ; others, their nests 

 not yet completed, flitted past with mouths full of grass ; 

 while, again, some, their beaks at right angles, hovered 



