SATELLITES AND NEIGHBOURS 33 



whitened and roughened by the salt of the sea, and finds 

 that more than half its apparent bulk is made up of several 

 infants in soft swaddles, crowded together into a homo- 

 geneous mass, the result is pleasing astonishment. Only 

 when individuals of the group move do they become visible 

 to their natural enemies. These tender young birds enjoy 

 no protection nor any of the comfort of a nest ; and if they 

 were not endowed from the moment of birth with rare 

 consciousness of their helplessness, the species, no doubt, 

 would speedily become exterminated, for keen-sighted 

 hawks hover about, picking up those which, failing to obey 

 the first law of nature, reveal themselves by movement. 

 If the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, what is the pro- 

 vision of Nature which enables so tender a thing as a young 

 bird, a mere helpless ball of creamy fluff, to withstand 

 the frizzling heat with which the sun bleaches the broken 

 coral ? Many do avail themselves of the meagre shadow 

 of shells and lumps of coral, but the majority are exposed 

 to the direct rays of the sun, which brings the coral to such 

 a heat that even the hardened beachcomber walks thereon 

 with "uneasy steps," reminding him of another outcast 

 who used that oft-quoted staff as a support over the " burn- 

 ing marl." Gilbert White relates that a pair of fly-catchers 

 which inadvertently placed their nests in an intolerably 

 hot situation hovered over it "all the hotter hours, while 

 with wings expanded and mouths gaping for breath, they 

 screened the heat from their suffering young." Parental 

 duty of the like nature does not appear to be practised for 

 the benefit of the young tern ; but they are well fed with 

 what may be considered thirst-provoking food. Thirst 

 does occasionally overcome the instinct which the young 

 birds obey by absolute stillness, and a proportion of those 

 which give way to the ever-present temptation of the sea 

 falls to the lot of the hawks. Mere fluffy toddlers, with 

 mouths gaping with thirst, slide and scramble down the 

 coral banks, waddle with uncertain steps across the strip of 

 smooth sand to be rolled over and over in their helplessness 

 by the gentle break of the sea. They cool their panting 

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