VIRGINIA BIRD HOMES 
I2I 
my ear, a veritable shriek, loud enough to startle one greatly, 
if taken unawares. More often the cry was a reiteration of 
sounds which reminded me of the violent sobbing of a child, 
made by drawing in the breath. They were anxious about 
their eggs; indeed it would sound as though they were 
fairly heart-broken. If they really suffered as much as their 
curious remonstrance seemed to imply, I should have felt posi¬ 
tively guilty in subjecting them to such outrageous indignity 
by prying into their domestic privacy and happiness. I called 
them “thesobbing birds,” and they darted about and sobbed 
their hearts away as long as I stayed near their nests. As 
they “ sobbed,” I could see their bills, like pairs of great 
shears, open and shut, as though, in flying by, they would 
snip off my ears. Flving low over the water, they seem to 
shear it as they quicklv, in passing, pick up fish or other 
marine creatures from the surface. 
To photograph them in flight successfully requires a 
