226 
WILD WINGS 
NEST AND EGGS OF LEAST SANDPIPER 
naturalists have been privileged to see. It was near this spot 
that we had just heard the love-song. What luck, thus soon, 
in all this vast waste, to stumble upon its cause ! And here, 
now, were both the owners. The singer had heard the dis¬ 
tressed chirping of his mate and had come down to trot 
about with her, though more careful than she to avoid too 
close approach to danger. It was the mother who showed 
herself the really anxious one. At times she would come close 
up beside us, throw herself prostrate on the moss, limp, flut¬ 
ter, and drag herself as though about to expire — the familiar 
ruse of shore-birds. 
And now, of course, to record by photography some of this 
rare scene was in order. As luck would have it, — perhaps to 
even up matters,—this was the only time in my life when 
