the Terns were greatly concerned. With piercing screams they darted at us, once actually hitting Mr. Seton‘s hat.
Search failing to reveal any sign of the young birds. the camera was left to play detective. Focusing it on the empty nest and surrounding it with ‘cat-tails,’ we attached some seventy feet of tubing and retired to the high grasses of a neighboring dry bank. But we were not hidden from the Tern. She hovered over us, shrieking her disgust with scarcely a pause, turning her long beak to this side and that, as she brought each eye in turn to bear. Finally, her craiks grew softer, and, fluttering over the nest, she uttered a soft whernt—whernt—whernt, which probably meant to her downings
YOUNG BLACK TERNS IN NEST
July 8, 1901
“It's all right; come back home now.” After half a minute of this calling, she fluttered lower and dropped out of sight behind the reed barriers. Apparently, there could be little doubt that with her voice she had conjured the chicks back to the nest.
Acting on this belief, a dozen rapid strokes were given to the bicycle pump at the end of the tube, and the Tern promptly flew up into the air, uttering her loud craik—craik in a way that plainly showed something had happened close by to alarm her, and thus plainly told us that the shutter on the camera had been sprung instantly we rushed through the mud and water to the nest, but only to find it as empty as before.
Inserting a fresh plate in the camera, we returned to our hiding-place. Again the Tern scolded us vigorously, but after a while, as before, her fears seemed to decrease; she gradually drew nearer to the nest and eventually dropped lightly down into the reeds, evidently on it. After waiting a
