Song Birds and Water Fowl 
for the terns do not aim at concealment: they 
appear, rather, to court publicity. Along the 
seashore, in the line of seaweed above high 
tide, in any clear space back among the rocks, 
especially in the stunted herbage and along the 
narrow sheep-paths, one will find these primi- 
tive affairs, hardly to be graced with the name 
of nest. They are thus scattered over a large 
part of the island; and, unless one takes heed 
to his ways, he is liable to tread on them. I 
saw one nest in which two eggs had been 
crushed by the foot of man or sheep, and bare- 
ly missed doing the same myself. The recep- 
tacle of the eggs is a slight depression in the 
ground, on which they occasionally arrange 
considerable dried grass; but usually a few 
wisps of hay are thought quite sufficient, and 
sometimes even this barest lining is dispensed 
with, and the eggs are committed to the cold 
earth. Indeed, the very depression in the ground 
may be lacking; for, in one instance, when I 
had taken the egg in my hand, I was at a loss 
where to replace it, so deficient was the nest 
in every vestige of material and form. This is 
the very opposite of the laborious and artistic 
productions of many of our land birds, and is 
commonly adduced as an argument to prove 
130 
