The picture “where terns lay” testifies to the solicitude of Nature for the preservation of types.  The apparent primary carelessness of the terns in depositing their eggs is shown, when the chicks are hatched, to have been artfulness of a high order.  At least a dozen, if not more, young birds were sharply focused by the camera, but so perfectly do their neutral tints blend with the groundwork of coral, shells and sand that only three or four are actually discernible, and these are perplexingly inconspicuous.  A microscopic examination of the photograph is necessary to differentiate the helpless birds from their surroundings.

On another island within the Barrier Reef several species of sea-birds spontaneously adapted themselves to altered circumstances.  They, in consonance with the general habits of the species, were wont to lay their eggs carelessly on the sand or shingle, without pretence of nests.  A meat-loving pioneer introduced goats to the island, the continual parading about of which so disturbed the birds, and deprived them of their hope of posterity, that they took to the building of nests on dwarf trees, out of the way of the goats.  That birds unaccustomed to the building of nests should acquire the habit, illustrates the depths of Nature’s promptings for the preservation of species; or is it that the faculty existed as an hereditary trait, was abandoned only when its exercise was unnecessary, and resumed when there was conspicuous occasion for it?  On a neighbouring island of the same group unstocked with goats, no change in the habits of the birds has taken place.

Among the rocks of Purtaboi, in cool dark grottoes, the brown-winged tern rears her young.  She often permits herself to be trapped rather than indicate her presence by voluntary flight.  One of the most graceful of the sea-swallows this.  Brown of back and greenish-white under surface; noisy, too, for it “yaps” as a terrier whensoever intruders approach the island during the brooding season; and its puff-ball chicken, crouching in dim recesses, takes the bluish-grey hue of the rock.

The Blue Reef heron builds a rough nest of twigs on the ledges of the rocks, sometimes at the roots of the bronze orchid (DENDROBIUM UNDULATUM), and endeavours to scare away intruders by harsh squawks, stupidly betraying the presence of pale blue eggs or helpless brood.  When the blue heron flies with his long neck stiffly tucked between his shoulders, he is anything but graceful; but under other circumstances he is not an ungainly bird.  Occasionally my casual observations are made afar off, with the medium of a telescope.  Then the birds are seen behaving naturally, and without fear or self-consciousness.  The other day the cute attitudes of a beach curlew interested me, as he stood upon a stone just awash, and ever and anon picked up a crab.  A blue heron flapped down beside him, and the curlew skipped off to another rock.  In a minute the heron straightened his neck, poised