182 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



Incubation begins as a rule when the first egg is laid, though 

 even now frequent frolics interrupt the progress of events. In 

 the course of fifteen days the first downy young bird appears, 

 being very wet and bedraggled but drying into a fluffy ball in 

 a short half hour. Within two days the other eggs hatch, by 

 which time the first hatched young are usually able to run about. 



The incubating parent either steals quietly away without 

 discovery if the approach of an intruder is observed in time, 

 or else flushes suddenly from under the feet with a seemingly 

 badly crippled wing and flops off uttering piteous squeals "a- 

 wee-wee-wee-eee-e-e-e-e" which soon brings the other parent 

 when both utter angry or very excited "peet-weets" flying and 

 running nervously about. 



Nothing is more cunning than the newly fluffed downy young 

 which are grayish above with a dark line from the bill down 

 the back and another through each eye along the side of the 

 head and are white below. The old birds are very excited 

 when they are examined but as the danger ceases to menace 

 and the intruder withdraws one parent or the other slips on to 

 the nest and soothes the young with a murmured low pitched 

 barely discernable "a-weet-a-weet-a-weet-a-weet-". Even when 

 the young have left the nest and are scattered about the parent 

 calls them together at times and hovers them, murmuring the 

 same low lullaby. 



The eggs are a creamy buff or whitish color, peppered, 

 spotted and blotched with blackish brown and chocolate. The 

 spots are most numerous at the larger end, being sometimes 

 confluent or wreathed. Four eggs found at Orono, June 4, 

 1896, measure 1.17 x 0.95, 1.19 x 0.96, 1.20 x 0.94, 1.21 x 

 0.95. The nest was two and a half inches in diameter outside 

 and one and a half inches inside being unusually well made 

 of dry grass. Exceptionally, fresh eggs have been found near 

 Orono as early as May 20 and as late as July first. 



The birds eat small mollusks, worms, insects and similar 

 things which they gather along the shores or in the shallow 



