50 A BIRD COLLECTOR’S MEDLEY. 
intended victim preparatory to entering on what I knew would be a_boot- 
less pursuit of the second bird, I suddenly thought I noticed the shimmering 
flight that so often heralds a collapse, and, sure enough, a moment afterwards 
up went its wings, and the bird fell headlong to the ground. I rushed up 
and found it lying stone dead within a few yards of a thick coppice; had 
it gone a little further I should probably have lost it even then. I owed 
my success entirely to the Stone-Curlew’s readiness to crouch, and, as most 
persons find it so hard to get within range, I cannot help thinking that the 
formation of the ground at this particular place makes the birds unusually 
ready to adopt these tactics. Half a mile off we are visible to them, and 
then disappear into a gully. If they don’t go then, we are within two 
hundred yards at our next appearance, and possibly catch them in two 
minds, a state of things that results in their adopting the more timid 
policy of crouching. If the slope were gradual, I believe that they would 
always take wing at about three hundred yards. 
One can hardly leave the Stone-Curlew without reference to the ex- 
haustive account of the actions of an East Anglian colony contributed to 
the pages of the ‘Zoologist’ by Mr. Selous. The writer was enabled to 
get quite close to a large flock day after day for two months, and during 
that period he acquired a most interesting insight into the habits of these 
extraordinary birds. His description of their evening chase after moths and 
other insects, some of them on the wing, is paralleled in my own experience 
by the behaviour of a tame Lesser Black-backed Gull, which never seemed 
so happy as when a swarm of insects descended on the lawn. His antics 
must have been very similar to those of the Stone-Curlews, for he caught 
his prey both settled and flying, sometimes using his wings to aid him, 
and sometimes merely darting along the ground. 
Another interesting member of the Plover tribe, which is supposed to visit 
the downs for a few days on migration, is the Dotterel. I have never had the 
good fortune to meet with it myself except in Norfolk, by the sea-shore, and I 
fancy that its route lies through Kent and Sussex rather than Hampshire. 
The beautiful Lapwing, whose aerial gambols lend such a charm to 
springtime, is, I am glad to say, rapidly recovering its numbers. At one 
time, round Winchester it seemed to have reached the verge of extinction 
as a breeding species, and many were the uplands on which it had ceased 
to rear its young. Now, thanks to some unknown cause, perhaps the fact 
that it did not pay to spend an afternoon hunting for its eggs, its wild 
note and strange drumming can again be heard in most of its old 
haunts, and the birds seem thoroughly to have re-established themselves, 
