GREY PLOVERS' NESTS i55 



together ; it kept running along the ground for a few 

 yards, ascending the ridges, looking round, and uttering 

 its somewhat melancholy cry. It crossed and recrossed 

 the same ridges over and over again, and finally dis- 

 appeared behind a knoll about forty yards ahead of me, 

 and was silent. I now adjusted my telescope on a tussock 

 to bear upon the place in case I lost its position, and was 

 just making up my mind to walk to the spot when I again 

 heard its cry, and saw it running as before. The male 

 was still stationary. The crossing and recrossing the 

 ridge upon which my telescope was pointed then continued 

 for another quarter of an hour, and at last the bird dis- 

 appeared behind the same ridge as before. I gave her a 

 quarter of an hour's grace, during which she was perfectly 

 silent, and then sat up to see if Harvie- Brown was satisfied 

 that she was on the nest. His point of sight was not so 

 favourable as mine ; and, thinking I had given up the 

 watch as hopeless, he fired off his gun as a last resource, 

 and came up to me. As soon as he fired both birds rose 

 almost exactly in front of the knoll upon which my 

 telescope pointed. Upon his arrival to learn what I had 

 made out, I told him the nest was forty or fifty yards in 

 front of my telescope. We fixed one of our guns pointing 

 in the same direction, so that we could easily see it. We 

 then skirted the intervening bog, got our exact bearings 

 from the gun, and commenced a search. In less than a 

 minute we found the nest with four eggs. As before, it 

 was in a depression on a ridge between two little lakes of 

 black bog. The eggs in this, our fifth nest, were con- 

 siderably incubated, which was probably the reason why 

 the birds showed more anxiety to lure us away. 



On our way back towards the river we crossed a 

 marsh where we saw some dunlins, and secured one 

 young one in down. On the higher part of the tundra. 



