34 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



bodies by a series of queer, sprawling marine gymnastics, 

 swim about buoyantly for a few minutes, are tumbled on 

 to the sand, and waddle with contented cheeps each back 

 to its own birthplace among hundreds of highly-decorated 

 eggs, and hundreds of infants like unto themselves. 



The parents of the white-shafted ternlet {Sterna 

 sinensis), the most sylph-like of birds, with others of the 

 family, ever on the look-out, follow in circling, screaming 

 mobs the disturbance on the surface of the sea caused by 

 small fish vainly endeavouring to elude the crafty bonito 

 and porpoise, and take ample supplies to the ever-hungry 

 young. How is it that the hundreds of pairs recognise 

 among the hundreds of fluify young, identical in size and 

 colour, each their particular care ? 



The picture " where terns lay " testifies to the solicitude 

 of Nature for the preservation of types. The apparent 

 primary carelessness of the terns in depositing their eggs 

 is shown, when the chicks are hatched, to have been artful- 

 ness of a high order. At least a dozen, if not' more, young 

 birds were sharply focused by the camera, but so perfectly 

 do their neutral tints blend with the groundwork of coral, 

 shells and sand that only three or four are actually discern- 

 ible, and these are perplexingly inconspicuous. A micro- 

 scopic examination of the photograph is necessary to 

 differentiate the helpless birds from their surroundings. 



On another island within the Barrier Reef several 

 species of sea-birds spontaneously adapted themselves to 

 altered circumstances. They, in consonance with the 

 general habits of the species, were wont to lay their eggs 

 carelessly on the sand or shingle, without pretence of nests. 

 A meat-loving pioneer introduced goats to the island, 

 the continual parading about of which so disturbed the 

 birds, and deprived them of their hope of posterity, that 

 they took to the building of nests on dwarf trees, out of 

 the way of the goats. That birds unaccustomed to the 

 building of nests should acquire the habit, illustrates the 

 depths of Nature's promptings for the preservation of 

 species ; or is it that the faculty existed as an hereditary 



