24 Palmer, Instinctive Stillness in Birds. [f&n 



and leaving the cap as a center I walked in a wide circle and then 

 began to spiral toward it. Using the utmost carefulness and strain- 

 ing my eyes I found my bird and made the exposure. As in all 

 other cases its colors and markings almost exactly matched the 

 vegetation; it is really a wonderful mimic, and it required very 

 careful work to distinguish it, but once found it seemed more con- 

 spicuous, and this is usual in similar cases, for with time our eyes 

 become better accustomed to the contour of the squatting bird. 



On the same island, St. Paul, I once stood for a long time knee 

 deep in cold water looking for some young Phalaropes (Lobipes 

 lobatus) which I knew were clinging to the scanty grass and, as it 

 proved, not three feet in front of me. Yet a movement on their 

 part would have instantly betrayed them, my eyesight was excel- 

 lent and I knew what I wanted and expected to find. 



These few examples represent a common experience of field 

 naturalists familiar with this group of birds. They are also char- 

 acteristic of young Terns and Gulls, of Quail and numerous other 

 species, but not always of the adults. 



Seeing a Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis) flying over a marsh 

 one dull afternoon I marked the place, but upon pushing there in 

 my skiff I was utterly unable to locate it. Later I put up another 

 and marking where it had alighted had the greatest difficulty in 

 finding it clinging motionless with bill almost erect, to a stem of 

 wild oats (Zizania aquatica). 



The following interesting experience occurred in Florida. I had 

 been walking among the pines with my gun and had slowly ap- 

 proached the backwater of the Kissimmee River where the water had 

 overflowed the short grass well back of the usual shoreline. Here 

 I soon noticed a Louisiana Heron (Hydranassa tricolor ruficollis) 

 standing in a few inches of water near a small clump of scrub 

 palmettoes (Sabal sp.) and at once conceived the idea of trying to 

 find out how near I could get to the bird. Using the clump as a 

 blind I gradually moved to within about sixty feet. Waiting a 

 while to notice the bird and to allay its fears, for it had evidently 

 detected me, I sat down on the grass and slowly worked myself to 

 one side of the clump in full view of the heron and not over forty 

 feet away. Here I sat for some time lounging, first on one side and 

 then on the other, at the same time working myself gradually nearer 



