126 Bird -Lore 



another. The poor birds seem to have as hard work satisfactorily disposing 

 of their catch as they have making it in the first place. 



The great number of the birds and their exact similarity and quick 

 movements made individual observation difficult, unless the bird was very 

 close at hand. Exceedingly graceful in the air, with an enormous spread of 

 wing, on land the Tern is handsome but ungraceful, appearing much too 

 heavy for his slight feet. At the moment of alighting he is beautiful; once 

 on the ground, he moves with a weak, uneven gait. Hundreds of these 

 jerking, waddling figures crossing and recrossing in the field of vision give 

 little chance of studying any one bird. 



The willows under which 1 was hiding grew at one side of the island on 

 a shelving shore, along which some half-grown birds were wading. A Least 

 Sandpiper, the only alien we saw in the colony of Terns, lingered in the shal- 

 lows for a while. Farther out there was almost constantly a flock of Terns 

 swimming about in the water. Most of them were young birds, distin- 

 guished from the adults by less brilliant coloring of bills and feet and by 

 brownish tints in the pearl gray of the body. These birds would occasion- 

 ally swim, to shore and waddle up and down on the pebbles for a while and 

 then go back to the water. The presence of this large flock of swimming 

 birds explained the sudden disappearance of most of the full-grown young 

 soon after our coming to the island. Incapable of sustained flight, if indeed 

 they could fly at all, the birds ran to the water and escaped. Many of them 

 returned and settled down after we had been hidden awhile. Evidently the 

 birds are strong swimmers long before they can fly. Perhaps in the course 

 of evolution the birds' ancestors were swimmers before they were flyers — 

 and the life history of the individual follows the same order. These birds 

 paddled ^bout serenely, close together, like a flock of Ducks. 



From the report of other observers who have made a longer visit to the 

 Tern islands, the birds keep up their noise incessantly, even though there 

 be no one in sight. So we had no hope that the whole flock would become 

 quiet. By noon, however, the birds were fairly well settled, and at a little 

 distance I could see crowds of adult birds walking about or crouching among 

 their little ones. Now and then a flock would rise, adding their cries to the 

 tumult overhead, and we knew that the photographer was moving his 

 camera. His task was a difficult one. He had brought a long piece of 

 tubing, thinking to hide at a distance and take pictures in peace, but the 

 birds, which were somewhat afraid of him, were in deadly terror of the 

 camera, and preferred the man to the machine. The young birds, protected 

 by their coloring, at first remained motionless, seemingly unfrightened. On 

 being touched or moved, however, so that they knew they were discovered, 

 they scurried away, to hide under stones or driftwood, and nothing could 

 induce them to come out and face the camera. 



There are two methods of self-protection in universal use among animals 



