TWO KINDS OF PLOVER 1 63 



you lie down somewhere near their nest, partly con- 

 cealed by one of the ridges of sea-grass, you will, 

 before very long, see a white head bob down behind 

 another ridge of sea-grass on the far side of the nest ; 

 the bird will have been' watching you for some little 

 time, and at the slight movement you make in discover- 

 ing it, will crouch down and run along under shelter 

 of this ridge, keeping close to the ground. After a 

 while you may see it looking at you again in the same 

 cautious way ; perhaps you stand up to see what it will 

 do to conceal itself, when it runs from the shelter 

 afforded by the sea-grass in a crouching position, and 

 takes advantage of the first depression in the sand, 

 however slight, to lie down and flatten itself out. You 

 approach it again, when it pursues the same tactics as 

 before, running a few yards and then hiding in some 

 footprint or other inequality in the sand. If you 

 follow it thus to the margin of the shore, it flies for a 

 few yards as though each beat of the wing would be 

 its last, and then, seemingly tired of this fooling, it 

 takes wing with quick and buoyant flight over the water, 

 describing a half circle, and then alights again on the 

 shore some two or three hundred yards from you. You 

 may depend upon it that if you expect these little 

 Plovers to show you their nest they will not do so. 

 You may lie down and wait, but they will do the same, 

 that is to say they will stand patiently waiting some 

 little distance off, perhaps stretching a wing and gaping, 

 or hitching up one leg in rather a bored way, and 

 looking round at you as much as to say " I wish you'd 

 go " ; but as you do not go, they still remain in the same 

 place a little while longer, and then run leisurely off to 



