126 WILD WINGS 



platforms of dry stems, built in tussocks just above the 

 reach of the tides which flow up all over the marsh, and were 

 canopied over by the grass in a very pretty manner. At one 

 time I caught sight of a little black young rail, which led me 

 a sorry chase over a soft mud-flat, greatly to the detriment of 

 my personal appearance. I had almost caught it, I thought, 

 when suddenly, as though by magic, it faded from my sight 

 amid a few sparse blades of marsh grass. Oh ! but I was 

 thirsty that day ! It was blazing hot, and the marsh seemed 

 like a furnace. After drinking the last of the precious water, 

 I found some relief in a dip in the ocean. Then came an 

 eight-mile tramp. Next day the keeper provided me with a 

 horse and tipcart for the same jaunt. This time I took plenty 

 of water, but, in an evil hour, I made the horse trot upon 

 the apparently smooth sand-beach. Everything on board the 

 springless cart began to leap into the air. A hole was 

 chipped in the bottle, and nearly all the water had leaked out 

 ere I knew it. Only about half a pint was saved by holding 

 the wreck of the bottle in my hand as I drove, and I had 

 another thirsty day of it. 



The numerous Laughing Gulls were not nesting in these 

 particular marshes, and to locate them I scoured the bays and 

 marshes far and near in a sail-boat with the keeper. Away 

 out near the entrance of Chesapeake Bay lie a group of small 

 islands, upon one of which is a U. S. quarantine station, 

 about as isolated a location as one could well find. Here, 

 upon the wide flats, were Laughing Gulls by the hundreds, 

 consorting with Black Skimmers and Common Terns. But 

 what amazed me most, as I landed upon a low sand-bar of 

 an island, was to find scores and scores of the Black Tern, 

 in full breeding plumage, hovering overhead, darting down 

 at us, and acting exactly as they do out in the sloughs of 

 North Dakota when one approaches their nests. The strange 



