THE DOTTEREL 231 



he ran round me restlessly. As it was necessary for me 

 to remain \\ithout movement, I was unable to follow him 

 when he moved behind me, and after a time I heard him 

 — so I thought — utter a curious, almost human, cry of 

 distress, quite unlike anything I had ever before known. 

 I resolved to place it on record, although I felt doubtful 

 whether I should be believed. 



After a while, in order to change my cramped position, 

 I moved round, and, to my astonishment, found a young 

 deer calf nestling up against me. The small person was 

 quite without fear, and as I had no wish to move farther 

 than necessary, I resumed my watching, with my curious 

 companion sheltering against me. 



It was not until I rose in order to change the plate 

 that the small calf realised how unhappy and lonely he 

 was, for he rose unsteadily to his feet and called piteously 

 several times. He wanted his milk very much indeed, 

 and endeavoured to obtain it, fu-st from me and then from 

 the camera. He offered an excellent subject for a photo- 

 graph, but it was none too easy to secure one, for he 

 insisted on following me everywhere. And so I carried 

 him away across the plateau and set him down on a 

 soft, grassy slope a couple of hundred yards distant, never 

 doubting but that his mother would return shortly to 

 search for him. 



I was successful this day in obtaining a number of 

 photographs of the Dotterel, and with the dipping of the 

 sun behind the clouds of a great thunderstorm I moved 

 off to search the hill for another nest. In this I was un- 

 successful, though I flushed a Dotterel — I imagine she was 

 the mate of my own acquaintance — near a little cairn, 

 a few hundred yards from the nest. 



Towards evening I left the hill, and believing that all 

 must be well, passed by the place where I had placed 

 the small calf, for earlier in the afternoon I had seen 



