10 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
I had to discover if my Tern was sitting in the 
position required. In order to gain sight of him, 
it was necessary to peep round the screen. This 
—after a proper interval of prayer and supplica- 
tion—I attempted, moving as gently and gradu- 
ally as a lizard can move its head: Alas! it was 
ordained that one eye of his should meet with 
one of mine. For the briefest fraction of a second 
he held me, guilty, taken in the very act, beneath 
his malevolent ken. Then in one long roar his 
feelings were vented. He had foreseen his triumph, 
and, waiting for the psychological moment, had 
been storing up suitable imprecations for persons 
who haunt lonely beaches and spy on the privacies 
of incubation. When as I leaned slowly out of 
the fluttering bellying tent and the tip of my 
ear first appeared, the bird must have foreknown 
my coming demolishment. As my cheekbone 
became visible he must have been whetting his 
beak, so that the first syllables should come 
trippingly. When our eyes met—one of his and 
one of mine—he had still, brooding in fierce 
silence, controlled himself long enough to let the 
disgrace of detected espial of his unborn chicks 
—of course I knew as a gentleman I should not 
have been there—soak and steep into my soul. 
He had not been content, as a shallower nature 
might have been, at the earliest chance to shame 
me. The tip of my ear, my whole ear, part of my 
