The Least Tern 



Taken in Monterey County 



Photo by the A ulhor 



A TERN A-WING 



line and they shall have no respite from 

 the common lot. They must cease their 

 tropical flutterings, their happy wander- 

 ings up and down the airy aisles which 

 parallel a thousandfold the illimitable 

 shores. Come, birdies, sea sprites, fog- 

 fays, wisps of sunlit spray, — howsoe'er ye 

 call yourselves — get you to your knitting' 

 Reproduce your sylphian, frivolous kind! 

 Where? Oh, any stretch of sun-warmed 

 sand will do, fronting the ocean. Oh, 

 of course, the ocean. But better one 

 where humans will not come, nor dogs — 

 those boisterous marplots! Better, too, 

 if you have a stretch of quiet waters to 

 the rear, a lagoon or river or imprisoned 

 pool, where fish will never fail you for 

 the babies. 



Truth to tell, the shores of California no longer offer safe asylum to 

 these tender children of the tropics. They still nest with us, or try to, 

 but the odds are against them. The playground of humanity, as we 

 boast our southern shores to be, is no fit place for birds like these. The 

 beaches belong to us. The sand is ours. We require it for the erection 

 of cottages, casinos, bath-houses, and other important things — and to 

 exercise our dogs, withal. Ths. mermaids are gone, the Tritons are fled. 



Better that these 

 birds go after them. 

 In the early stage 

 of egg-laying the birds 

 are very easily dis- 

 turbed, rising in a 

 cloud at the distant 

 approach of danger, 

 and scattering in a 

 fairy maelstrom of 

 protest. As incubation 

 advances only the 

 nearer pairs attend 

 upon the danger, so 

 that the intruder 

 moves about under a 

 shifting halo of 



Taken in Mcnlerey County 



TERN COUNTRY 



Photo by the Author 



ex- 



1455 



