SAND DUKES AND SALT MARSHES 



seems a common-sense view, and will answer 

 for most naturalists as a good working hy- 

 pothesis. 



Early one May morning, while the sun was 

 still low over the sea, I was walking up wind 

 along the beach, when I noticed a doe stand- 

 ing like a statue with ears erect, gazing out 

 into the east, a worshipper of the two greatest 

 mysteries, the sea and the sun. Although I 

 stopped and myself stood motionless, the 

 nervous twitching of her tail from side to 

 side showed she was uncertain as to the iden- 

 tity of the object on the beach, but when she 

 turned and ambled off into the dunes her tail 

 remained down, the flag did not show, and I 

 concluded from the absence of this instinctive 

 danger-signal of her race, that she had not 

 recognized me and was not alarmed. 



One January day in 1912 I had been watch- 

 ing a herd of twenty seals on the bar, and 

 many sea birds in the water, when I looked 

 towards Steep Hill and saw, standing in the 

 snow and against the sky line, a group of 

 seven deer— two stags and five does or full- 

 grown fawns. The stags, with heads erect 

 and splendid spreading antlers borne on high, 

 stood like statues peering at what they sus- 



44 



