A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Oroan of the Audubon Socicties 



Vol. VI January— February, 1904 No. 1 



The Black Tern at Home 



By ERNEST THOMPSON SETON and FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



With photographs from nature 



C^^RAIK — crailc — craik!" screamed the old Black Tern, in anxious 

 ^ quavering note, as we crossed the low prairie to the particular 

 pond that she had consecrated by making her home on its 

 weedy waters. 



The nest had been discovered on June i6, 1901, not far from our 

 camp, near Shoal Lake, Manitoba. A small knob of mud and water- 

 soaked vegetation was selected as a foundation on which to place the 

 nest of coarse reeds. At this time it contained one egg. On June 18 

 a second egg was laid and, without waiting for the usual complement of 

 three, incubation was begun. 



At no time during this remarkable period of a bird's year did the 

 Terns fail to resent intrusion on their haunts. The Blue -winged Teal 

 and Wilson's Phalarope nesting in the long grasses on the border of the 

 slough fluttered from their eggs only when one seemed about to step 

 upon them, but the Tern sprang into the air and, with sharp screams, came 

 to meet us when we were thirty yards away. 



On June 25, there occurred an unusually heavy fall of rain, raising the 

 water in the slough several inches and threatening to inundate the little 

 island. But the Terns saved their eggs from the flood by bringing fresh 

 nesting material and raising the height of their home; though whether the 

 action was performed with a definite object or was merely such a display of 

 the nest -building instinct as is not infrequently seen during incubation, it 

 is difficult to determine. 



On July 5, after an incubation period, therefore, of seventeen days, the 

 first egg hatched. Three days later we visited the nest, expecting to see a 

 pair of downy young, but, to our surprise and disappointment, it was 

 deserted. Evidently, however, there was something not far away in which 



