THE PLAINS 



349 



young could be secured without difficulty, but I frankly con- 

 fess that although every means I could devise was used to 

 secure satisfactory photographs of the birds themselves, the 

 effort failed. 



The instinct of incubation is apparently too poorly de- 

 veloped to make the nest a lure, while the shyness of the 

 birds, the instantaneousness with which their diving habits 

 enable them to disappear, and the denseness of the tub's 

 among which they lived, all militated against success. What- 

 ever was learned of the habits of the bird, as it was observed 

 both here and on Big Stick, has been incorporated in my 

 notes on this species in the preceding chapter. 



/ 



Black Terns 



