36 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



croodling note which I have spoken of, and which 

 the chicks, on hearing, would answer with a '' quirr, 

 quirr," and run towards it, then stop to listen, and 

 run again, getting, all the while, more and more 

 excited. If the old bird was at any distance, which, 

 as the chicks got older, was more and more fre- 

 quently the case, there would sometimes be long 

 intervals between these summoning notes — if we 

 assume them to be such — and, during these, the 

 chicks lay still and, generally, close together, as if 

 they were in the nest. When I walked to them, 

 on these occasions, both the parent birds would 

 start up from somewhere in the neighbourhood, 

 and whilst one of them flew excitedly about, the 

 other — which I took to be the hen — used always 

 to spin, in the most extraordinary manner, over 

 the ground, looking more like an insect than a 

 bird, or, at any rate, suggesting, by her move- 

 ments, those of a bluebottle that has got its wings 

 scorched in the gas, and fallen down on the table. 

 Whilst she was doing this, the chicks would, some- 

 times, run away, but, quite as often, one or both of 

 them would remain where they were — apparently 

 quite unconcerned — and allow me to take them up. 

 When, at last, the mother followed the example of 

 her mate, and flew off^, she showed the same superior 

 degree of anxiety in the air, as she had, before, upon 

 the ground. She would come quite near me, hover 

 about, dart away and then back again, sit on a 

 thistle-tuft, leave it, as though in despair, and, at 

 last, re-alight on the ground, where she kept up a 

 loud, distressed kind of clucking, which, at times, 

 became shriller, rising, as it were, to an agony. The 



