64 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



Take the delightful dotterel, for instance. It will cro 

 through all the deceptive performances of a lapwing, and 

 weary out your patience with anxious devices for leading you 

 astray ; and yet, when you at last discover its beautiful eggs, 

 olive, with rich dark markings, or its downy little ones, 

 almost the same colour as the eggs, cuddled together in a 

 small hollow, the old birds seem almost to congratulate you 

 upon your sagacity, and come close, as much as to say, "Yes, 

 these are our eggs ; we were trying to show them to you all 

 the time ; and this is the way we sit down on them. Like to 

 see us catch a fly ? There ! That's the way we do it. See 

 us run." Then they droop one wing and begin to flutter along 

 the ground, as if hurt — ^just to show you how it is clone ; and, 

 in fact, before you go (and over your going they unreservedly 

 and unmistakably rejoice), will sometimes go through such a 

 series of performances as justifies their proverbial reputation 

 for semi-idiotcy : 



"The dotterell which we think a ver)^ dainty dish, 

 Whose taking makes sucli sport as man no more could wish, 

 For as you creep or cower, or lie or stoop, or go. 

 So marking you with care, the apish bird doth so, 

 And acting everything doth never mark the net 

 Till he be in the snare which men for him have set." 



This was written three centuries ago ; but foolish or not, the 

 dotterel is a very engaging little bird, and to those who live 

 near its summer haunts one of the prettiest details of bird-life 



