BRITISH CAMEROONS 335 
form of sustenance. When the parent bird was removed to another 
box, the youngster regained confidence almost at once and had a 
good feed. 
The following day I caught the other parent bird and intro- 
duced this to the baby, with the same result as before. 
As the baby grew I tried from time to time introducing it to 
one or both parents to see if they would live on friendly relations, 
but with no success. On the last occasion I found blood on the 
youngster’s head—the result no doubt of the parent ramming it 
with one of its deadly wing-spurs. It was not until the young one 
was nearly full-grown that this extraordinary animosity disap- 
peared and I was able to keep them peacefully together. 
I am convinced by the behavior of these plovers, before and 
after capture, that they abandon their young almost as soon as they 
are hatched, but remain in the vicinity to draw off any would-be 
intruder, feigning injury and enticing the enemy in the wrong 
direction. The baby I caught was well able to look after itself dur- 
ing the fluffy stage and was certainly able to escape detection by 
its remarkable powers of camouflage. In a locality abounding in 
predators it seems likely that such a set-up between parents and 
young must have a high survival value. 
It still remained a mystery to me why this pair had chosen to 
nest on a spit of land jutting out from the nearby forest, when 
they could have avoided any predatory mammals by nesting on 
the island. But instinct told them something that I had not fore- 
seen. In the far-off Bamenda Mountains—the source of the Cross 
River—the first heavy rains of the season occurred, and with a 
mighty roar the flood-waters arrived, changing the whole aspect 
of this peaceful waterway. Within twenty-four hours the island 
was completely covered—the water rising to twenty feet above its 
previous level by the following day. 
My bird nets were always providing evidence concerning the 
nocturnal habits of various fruit bats. Those set in any gap in the 
riverside foliage on the edge of the forest collected several speci- 
mens every night. 
The ease with which fruit bats all over the world are captured 
in nets indicates that they do not employ the radar-like means of 
detecting objects by emitting high-frequency sound-waves and 
