W. FARREN: STONE - CURLEW. 307 



the pace at which this hitherto inert creature can run. 

 As a rule it will not run very far, not more than about 

 twenty to fifty yards, then it drops flat again in the 

 crouching attitude, and with the attitude its perfect faith 

 in its protective value returns, and one will have the 

 same difficulty as before in convincing it that its natural 

 defence has broken down. 



I think it is very plain that the extreme development 

 of the crouching habit of the Stone-Curlew has arisen from 



Fig. 4. — Conspicuous with unusually dark surroundings. 



long and continued adherence to the same sort of environ- 

 ment, and this in its turn is calculated to j^revent the 

 species from ever becoming other than extremely local in 

 this country. In Norfolk and Suffolk where I know the 

 Stone-Curlew, and the only English locality where it can 

 be described as at all plentiful, the conditions are — ex- 

 tensive tracts of arid, uncultivated country mostly devoid 

 of the slightest vegetation save lichens and mosses ; the 



