Three handsome green-white eggs soon lay in Black Shag's nest. Then followed the long sitting, the mother's patient sacrifice of food and freedom; till at last the eggs were hatched, and three half-fluffed, half-naked babies lay beneath the sheltering breast. They showed no beauty to a casual eye, but their mother thought them perfect. In her fond eyes no baby birds could be more sweet and lovable. Gone was now the old life for Black Shag, with its leisureliness and ease. With three children to feed and guard, the days became a rush of work. "You must help, father," she said to her mate. In turns they fished, swallowing enough for the babies as well as themselves, then returning to the nest and drawing up from their long food-bags the delicious oily fish that the children loved. The babies grew fat. Fluffy down grew so thickly over them that they began to look like brown and white balls of wool. Nestling together, they kept one another warm; gradually Black Shag found herself able to leave them for longer and longer periods. They fished together now, she and the father Shag. As the children grew bigger still, and more and more able to take care of themselves, the parents stayed away all day. They flew off in the morning to their favourite fishing waters, satisfied their own hunger, and loaded themselves with extra fish, then returned at nightfall to feed the clamouring little ones. The summer months passed by. In the nest the children grew full-sized and feathered. "Learn to swim and fish for yourselves," cried Black Shag, and she tumbled them one by one into the water below. There they floundered about till they learned to paddle with their black webbed feet. Then the mother left them, knowing that her work for them was done. Back to her old haunt she went, to live again, till spring returned, her life of leisured ease. In her narrow inlet, where peaceful bush overlooks the little lapping waves, she hunts her daily feasts, or sits for hours upon her bare brown rock, silent, satisfied, alone. VII.--THROUGH DAYS OF GROWTH On a grassy tableland a pair of albatrosses made their nest. They dug a ring of earth and pushed it into a central mound, then hollowed out the top and lined it with grass. Here the mother laid her one white egg. Father and mother took turns in sitting on the egg. When the little one was hatched they again took turns in feeding him and sheltering him from cold sea winds. All through the summer days and nights they tended him with utmost love and care, until, when autumn came, they could safely leave him in the nest. Then back to their old sea life they went, skimming the rolling waves throughout the day, but winging their patient way at each fresh dawn to feed their little one.