The plumage of the young terns still in the area now shows a more definite contrast between black and white. They have become more adept at flight. Many are still being fed ... almost continuously during those hours of shallow water when fish are easier to catch, so that the passivity of those still waiting on the sands looks like a consequence of being overstuffed. I get the impression that less food is being proffered by the parent birds, but they have certainly not relinquished their responsibility. They bring in small fish and their large children gulp them down and wait for more. Other young birds are now flying readily--chasing after their parents, beseeching attention, but more often trying to fish for themselves. Little by little, by rewards and refusal, failure and success, they are progressing toward the perfected action of mature birds. They are becoming more aggressive, fighting for space over a crowded channel, or protecting their catch. The adults, whose success in fishing they are beginning to approximate, hover over the water, beaks pointing down, then dive suddenly, wings partly folded back. They hit the water like small stones, then come up again, flying away fast if they have a fish in their bills, chased by other birds that cry “Karr! Karr!” with a slightly growling note. It is not so much that the young terns are taught, in our sense of the word, as that they become more and more a part of the communicable rhythm of the whole race of terns. Their circling, diving, hovering, or racing downwind are common proficiencies of motion, that fit the great environment of air and sea. Growing up is rhythmic practice. There is not such a gap between tutelage and its recipients as there might seem to be among human beings. Terns seem involved in a ritualistic performance throughout their lives. Much of the behavior they show in getting food as nestlings and fledgling birds has its parallels in adulthood. There is the “fish flight,” for example, which has its origins in the begging, receiving, and then hunting food of a growing bird. (A fish is a master image, a center of recognition and attachment, with all the formality of action it entails.)