EXTERNAL FEATURES 45 



In some cases the protective value seems indubitable. 

 Thus a careful ornithologist, Dr. F. M. Ogilvie, confessed 

 that he never himself found a very young nestling Ringed 

 Plover, though he often looked for them and knew them from 

 specimens obtained by hatching eggs out in an incubator. 

 " Yet, I have constantly been over ground where I knew the 

 birds were breeding freely, and where nestlings must have 

 been quite plentiful." The invisible young birds are 

 stone-coloured, with black-tipped down. " As long as the 

 parents are uttering their alarm note, so long will these 

 little fluffy balls, only hatched perhaps a few hours ago, 

 remain squatted and motionless, with their necks stretched 

 out, their bodies buried in the golden moss, so that all the 

 lighter underparts, including the light eye streak, are hidden 

 from view." 



