194 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



tracts multitudes of insects, and thus provides 

 good feeding-grounds for the birds. There also 

 the grass is close-cropped and it is a good place 

 for a short excursion afield. The willet, yellow- 

 legs, black-bellied plover, pectoral sandpiper, 

 and others all like to slip away a little distance 

 from the water on hot, sunny days, and visit 

 their noisy cousin, the kildeer, upon the knolls. 

 This was where I found them, and down in the 

 shallows, their tiny relatives, the least sandpipers 

 and Northern phalaropes — the latter just arrived 

 from the north — were almost alone. 



There was but one way to reach the island. 

 This way was very primitive but sure: to wade 

 the intervening half mile of marsh. For though 

 it was the ninth of September, this year it had 

 been decreed that the shooting-season should not 

 open till the fifteenth of the month, and so there 

 were no shooters or boats handy. But the lack 

 of a boat was compensated a thousand-fold by 

 the birds of the place being in a measure un- 

 afraid and still in their natural environment of 

 the summer. In another week they would be 

 driven pell-mell out into the open and more in- 

 accessible places by the shot and shell of the 

 hunting fraternity. 



