214 The Ottawa Naturalist. 



visit will be repeated next year. It can hardly be that they will not 

 return to London, as they have always come so near us before that we 

 have for years been on the point of having them with us in the breeding 

 season. W. E. Saunders, London, Ont. 



Keen Sight of Birds On May 23rd 1894, I was an 

 eye-witness of a little scene in the marsh at Rondeau that 

 impressed me with the extreme care that wild things have to take of 

 themselves. I had shot a Dowitcher, Macrorhamphas griseus, and one 

 or two common birds,and wishing to skin them I approached a patch of 

 semi floating rushes, mud, and deoris to hold the canoe while I did so. 

 I saw on the other side of the moss a Redbacked Sandpiper, {Tringa 

 alpina pacifica and was rather surprised that he did not fly when I 

 came near, but he was tame, and I set to work. For probably an hour 

 he spent his time within from 10 to 30 feet from me, pruning and 

 feeding. He worked with little dabbles of his bill in quite a peculiar 

 way unlike anything I had previously seen. Once, when I glanced at him 

 I saw him stop as though afraid of me he looked steadily, and shrank 

 down flat on the ground where he lay perfectly still. 



I looked carefully for a hawk or gull but could see none ; yet he 

 still remained prone. At last after perhaps half a minute, he turned his 

 head and seemed to be looking over to the northeast. On turning 

 that way I saw against the cloud, an eagle still approaching, flying away 

 up so far that without the assistance of the cloud I could not have 

 found him ; but the Sandpiper saw him quickly and prepared for 

 business. 



After the eagle hid passed, the sandpiper arose and continued his 

 repist, keeping, no doubt, a keen eye for the next intruder. As all this 

 occurred within fifteen feet of where I sat, and the bird took merely 

 the slightest notice'of my motions it shewed how much less dread a bird 

 has of a man than of a bird of prey. Before leaving the spot, I 

 experimented with the bird to see that he was not wounded, and it took 

 a good deal to make him fly, and when he flew it was only for a few 

 feet when he settled and fairly defied me to scare him again. 



v 



f\&\C>(/ W. E. Saundeks, London, Ont. 



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