The Forster Tern 



In the Los Bafios country, whose wide watery stretches seem to 

 possess an irresistible charm for these terns, the arbitrary handling of the 

 flood gates brings disaster to many a colony, and a whole season's effort, 

 renewed and persistent on the birds' part, may prove fruitless in the end. 



For all that the terns are often interlopers themselves, the brooding 

 bird resents intrusion, diving angrily at the human visitor and giving 

 vent to the only cry which this bird utters, a harsh, low a-a-a (like the 

 a in bad), absurdly ineffective as a warning. All the neighbors join in the 

 defense, and the intruder is berated in many inflections of very platt 

 Dentsch. Every other point in the bird's make-up, the mild eye, the 

 jaunty cap, the snowy plumage, the graceful lines of contour, the flowing 

 streamers of the tail, so belie this vulgar vehemence that the observer 

 is moved to jeer: "Aw, now, you ar'n't mo-ad!" 



Eggs are normally three in number, spotted, after their kind, but 

 I have fancied a tendency toward greens in the otherwise neutral ground- 

 colors, — an in- 

 cipient approxi- 

 mation of the 

 normal sur- 

 roundings. Nests 

 containing five or 

 six eggs are oc- 

 casionally found, 

 but these are 

 undoubtedly the 

 product of two 

 birds. Marsh- 

 dwellers are com- 

 monly tolerant of 

 social breaches. 



I f the eggs 

 are neither re- 

 moved by flood 

 nor addled by 

 undue exposure 

 to the sun, babies 

 ensue, of such 

 fashion as Mr. 

 Rockwell recites: 1 



Taken in Washington 

 Photo by the Author 



1 Robert B. Rockwell 

 in "The Condor," 

 Vol. XIII.. Mar. 

 191 1, p. 60. 



1446 



CONFLICTING CLAIMS 



TWO EGGS OF THE WESTERN GREBE AND ONE OF THE FORSTER TERN OCCUPY 



THE NEST PROPER, WHILE A WAIF EGG OF THE AMERICAN 



COOT APPEARS AT THE RIGHT 



