Chapter XXII. 



PLOVERS. 



Perhaps before these words appear in print, "the rolling 

 year" will have brought down our first migrants from the 

 north. I have known snipe down as early as the first week 

 in August, and we have now arrived at the end of the 

 second. At any time from now onward to chill November 

 ■we may hear the shrill cries of the night fliers as they circle 

 round and round over the Settlement seemingly distracted 

 by the unnatural light. Snipe, woodcock, plovers of many 

 sorts, ducks, geese, and all the rest will follow each other in 

 their flight to warmth and food. Our local migrations will 

 have been noticed by everj^body who takes an interest in birds. 

 Our rooks are gone: so are most of the blackbirds. Not since 

 the first week in July have I heard the call of the cuckoo, 

 nor, since about the middle of the month, the merry cry of the 

 Paradise flycatcher. All these have disappeared, the fly- 

 catchers till next April, the rooks till the end of the month or 

 so, and the blackbirds till about the beginning of October. 



But the bird-lover need not trouble about that, since 

 during the coming weeks he will have the opportunity of 

 studying one of the most interesting and varied of our bird 

 families— the plovers and their allies. Here in a delta we 

 naturally have a good deal that is attractive to all the 

 long-legged species. There is always an abundance of 

 water. Marsh land is plentiful, and the sea-coast close at 

 hand. Even the most closely cultivated land is low and moist. 

 Much of it is paddy field. Indeed it would be difficult to 

 imagine a more suitable spot for waders and water birds 

 generally were it not for one thing, the thick-set population. 

 What the southern part of the province must have been during 

 the first few years after the Taipings had exterminated the 

 population over large tracts may be imagined from the con- 

 dition of affairs during the second half of the decade of the 

 'sixties,' when, in the neighbourhood of Kahshing there was a 

 sort of No-man's-land rapidly going back to jungle. There 

 for years was found a paradise of game, from deer downward. 



But we are specially interested just now in the plover 

 tribe, and perhaps the best representative of the group, the 

 one most taken note of, and the most interesting to sport, is 



