Children of the Midnight Sun 



191 



A hungry Arctic fox prowled around the home of the Sandpipers the morn- 

 ing of July 5, but the circle of tundra ponds which surrounded the nesting- 

 site proved an effective barrier. Following the marauder's tracks along the 

 beach, we came to where he had eaten a family of young Snow-Buntings that 

 he had dug out of their nest deep in a crack in a 'cut' bank. 



Another menace hung over the Sandpiper family in the shape of 'Ook-pick,' 

 the large Snowy Owl. If 'Ook-pick' had waited in orthodox Owl fashion until 

 night-time to hunt for his supper, he would have had to wait for over a month 

 for night to fall, so, being a sensible bird, he did his hunting mornings and even- 

 ings. Thus, as he sat one morning on his favorite perch, a log that stuck up 

 out of a snowdrift, he saw what he took to be a brown lemming mouse scamper- 



MALE SANDPIPER (IN BACKGROUND) BROODING A CHICK. ANOTHER CHICK 

 TO THE RIGHT AND BELOW CENTER IS AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF PROTEC- 

 TIVE COLORATION. 



ing about near Mrs. Sandpiper. He slid from his perch and sailed on silent 

 wings to the spot, but Mrs. Sandpiper had caught a glimpse of him and gave a 

 quick cry of alarm to her children. Not a feather quivered as the youngsters 

 hastily flattened in the grass. Mr. Owl poised directly over them, blinked his 

 large yellow eyes, and doubtless wondered how that lemming mouse dis- 

 appeared so suddenly. The little Sandpipers remained perfectly still until 

 their mother called them after the danger was past. 



By July 8 the young were leading the parents about. They were now too 

 large to be brooded. During one bright, cold day when there was a freezing 

 wind from off the ice, the mother protected one juvenal from the chill wind by 

 crouching on the windward side of him, thus forming a windbreak. By this 

 time the Juvenal's wing-quills were half-grown, and the young birds stood 

 well above the short grass where they fed. 



A pair of swift-winged Parasitic Jaegers, the worst feathered villains in the 

 Northland, had often cast mercenary glances at the Sandpiper family. The 

 daily occupation of these Jaegers during the nesting-season was the spying out 



