18 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
will, as a final touch, gather little billfuls of sand, 
and with jerking movements cast them to right 
and left. In watching the busy life of a great 
Ternery I have often wondered if even under 
normal conditions each pair of birds always 
succeeds in rearing its own chick. It is at any 
rate no infrequent sight to witness a Tern settle 
on a nest apparently its own, driven off that 
nest by another Tern, the first bird therefore 
really an interloper, or else a genuine owner dis- 
possessed by force. Sometimes I have been in- 
clined to favour the former supposition on account 
of the small amount of resistance made—anger 
at the disturbance of a comfortable position 
rather than rage at dispossession of a treasured 
egg. On the other hand, I may have been but 
judging by appearances, for had the sitting bird 
been, let us say, of a particularly fierce disposition, 
its resistance would have been successful, and I 
should then have believed it to be the original 
owner. Often the judgment of Solomon in regard 
to the babe claimed by the rival mothers seems 
to be the principle that decides ownership. 
The Tern that most dearly loves the egg, 
imagined rightly or wrongly to be its property, 
gets it. 
Under conditions of storm and stress there are 
yet stronger reasons for doubting whether each 
pair of Sea Swallows rear to maturity their own 
