CHAPTER. -¥ 
A VENGEFUL COMMUNITY 
a was terns, I think, who, when some killing 
Scotch naturalist or other had wounded one of 
their number, came down to it, pitifully, as it lay 
on the sea, and bore it away upon their backs and 
wings. I can better realise this incident now, after 
having walked about a ternery in these northern parts, 
and again tried the experiment—which in the south 
produced no special consequences—of interfering 
with their young. Upon my taking one of them 
in my hand, the whole community, amounting, 
perhaps, to several hundreds, gathered in one great, 
air-filling cloud, a little above my head, and with 
violent sweeps and piercing cries, seemed to threaten 
an actual attack. When I let the young thing flutter 
to the ground, and it moved and struggled upon it, 
the excitement was redoubled. It seemed as though 
they were animated with hope at seeing it out of 
my grasp, and as I took it up and let it go twice 
again, each time with the same result, I have little 
doubt that this was really the case. It was not only 
the two parents—assuming them to have been there 
—who attacked me. Many did so; many, too, 
seemed to feel, at some time, an extra degree of fury, 
whilst not a bird in the whole crowd but was violently 
and vengefully moved. These terns, as they clustered 
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