248 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



In about twenty minutes the oyster-catchers 

 ceased their loud duetting on a favourite vantage 

 rock some sixty yards away, and the female flew 

 towards home. Through narrow chinks to right 

 and left of me I watched her walking round and 

 round my hiding-place trying to solve the mysteries 

 of the black eye staring in the direction of her 

 nest, and lessening the diameter of each circle 

 as she gained confidence. The blood of genera- 

 tions of true sportsmen within me throbbed with 

 excitement as I watched her creep closer and 

 closer to her eggs, for in pitting one's intelligence 

 and patience against the shyness and cunning of 

 a wild animal, whether bird or beast, there is an 

 unmatchable exhilaration about the moment of 

 overcomine". 



At last, when my excitement was at fever 

 heat, she walked up, and hustling her eggs with 

 her breast until I could hear them chink on the 

 pebbles, she sat down, and I instantly made an 

 exposure, knowing by experience that a brooding 

 bird seldom sits long the first time she returns 

 to her nest with a suspicion that all is not quite 

 right. Her acuteness of hearing was so great 

 that, in spite of the constant booming of the tide 

 upon the craggy shore close behind us, she heard 

 me directly I commenced to change my plate, 

 and shot off her nest like an arrow. 



There is something wonderful about the ability 



