Where the Black Tern Builds 95 



birds while the feeding was in progress. The patient photog- 

 rapher sat with one hand on the bulb, waiting for the reappear- 

 ance of the male. He did not come. The female sat on her 

 nest, held there by mother love, though there was a great 

 fear in her eye as she looked at the gun-like affair in the 

 window above. An hour passed, and still Mr. Jay did not 

 appear. He was finally located by an interested observer in 

 a tree at the far-off edge of the lawn. He was keeping up 

 his watch on the nest and on the infernal machine in the 

 window, but he dared not approach. An hour and a half had 

 gone by, and Mrs. Jay was getting hungry and restless. She 

 had long since overcome her fear of the camera. Two hours 

 passed. Birds require a constant supply of food and Mrs. 

 Jay was at the famine point. Suddenly she spied her hus- 

 band in the tree beyond the flower beds. She left her nest 

 and made for her spouse like a flash. She perched just above 

 his head, and then there followed a scolding and berating that 

 has no parallel in bird families. The madame called her husband 

 a lazy, shiftless, good-for-nothing coward. She called his 

 attention to the fact that for two hours she had sat under the 

 frowning face of the awful thing in the window, while he, lost 

 to all jayhood and to all memory of courtship promises, had 

 not dared so much as approach the nesting-tree, even for the 

 moment needed to feed his faithful wife. For fully two min- 

 utes the air was filled with jay ejaculations of wrath and con- 

 tempt, and none of these ejaculations came from Mr. Jay. 

 He took the tirade meekly. The pitch of Mrs. Jay's voice, 

 coupled with the choice selection of adjectives which she 

 hurled at her husband, brought an interested audience, com- 

 posed of all the bird residents of the neighborhood. Finally 

 madame broke off short and made her way back in all haste 



