WILD WINGS 
130 
particularly of oysters, scallops, and sea-clams. Some of the 
terns by this time had young. The downy little fellows do 
not remain long in the home-nest, but wander about freely 
over the warm sand. Nature’s “protective coloration” won¬ 
derfully blends them with their surroundings. When an 
enemy approaches, all they have to do is to squat and keep 
perfectly still, and the chances are that they will not be no¬ 
ticed. 
At one place a Marsh Tern was making a great ado over 
my presence, screaming and swooping down so vigorously 
as almost to strike me on the head. Slowly walking about, 
I kept my eyes fastened on the glaring sand. After some mo¬ 
ments, I suddenly spied the cause of the commotion, a young 
tern squatting at the foot of a weed. During the quarter of 
an hour I spent photographing it, not a yard away, the little 
creature did not stir a hair’s breadth. As long as I did not 
touch it, it evidently thought itself unobserved. But when my 
work was done, I gave the touch that dissolved the magic 
spell, and it went racing away. 
In this vicinity the Laughing Gulls were also nesting. 
Some had nests out on the marsh, others in the clumps of 
coarse grass just back from the beach. I chose a spot where 
there were onlv a few scattered pairs, to make as little com¬ 
motion as possible and not to kee]3 many birds long off their 
nests, where I began the ordeal of trying to photograph them 
at short range. Selecting a nest with the usual three eggs, 
conveniently located, I set the camera on the ground near 
it in a clump of grass, the latter arched over it in what 
I thought to be a masterly manner. As I lay hidden, peering 
over a sand-dune, thread in hand, I was prepared to see the 
gull return almost at once to its nest. Soon the bird was 
hovering over it; she seemed about to alight, when away 
she went. Making a few circlings, she came back, but after 
