608 THE BLACK OYSTER-CATCHER. 
Now and then one will alight quite near and stand for a moment looking 
very big and bold. Then he will draw his head in and settle his body lower 
on the legs and sneak off, glancing furtively over his shoulder to see if his 
movements are being shadowed. Without question he is trying to develop the 
kind and degree of our interest. If the female was sitting upon eggs she 
slipped away too soon to be caught at home, and she spends the entire time of 
\ NESTING SITE OF THE BLACK OYSTER-CATCHER 
A GRA LINE NEST ITH THREE GC LAY BE DISCERNED JUST TO THE LEFT OF THE BLACK CENTER 
our stay arranging elaborate pantomimes for our misguidance. Now she 
bends with quivering wing and dips her head up and down, as tho inviting 
attention to her charming nestlings. “Ar’n’t they darlings?” (She means a 
heap of mussel shells just before her eye). Or again she settles down upon 
a barnacle-covered rock and broods virtuously—on barnacles. 
And if by any accident one does become possessed of the real secret, it is 
great sport to devise a stealthy return and to watch the bird steal away from 
the eggs, slowly, painfully, in abject humiliation, hoping against hope that she 
is eluding observation, until a safe distance is reached. When the game is “all 
