Vol l909^ VI ] Palmer, Instinctive Stillness in Birds. 29 



water. Apparently the fox did not notice me for it jogged along 

 easily and I finally lost sight of it when it disturbed a large number 

 of gulls which had been resting on a larger point of sand. When I 

 reached this place all the birds had left and I could see nothing 

 there except, as I thought, two stones. I therefore crossed the 

 sandy triangle at its base and reached the opposite side. Here I 

 was surprised not to see the tracks again and began looking for the 

 fox. It had not passed me and no return tracks were to be seen. 

 I hesitated awhile, looking in every direction, and finally deter- 

 mined to make sure of the 'stones' which were then easily within 

 gunshot. When about thirty feet off the rusty summer-coated 

 fox arose and began running back over his incoming tracks. 

 But for my wonder and then my curiosity I might have missed my 

 specimen. Foxes in out of the way places have been known to 

 play hide and seek, as it were, even behind a plant stalk and to make 

 off when they found that they were discovered. Fawns and young 

 antelopes squat on the ground like young waders, and for the same 

 reason, mimicry and stillness, inability to do otherwise, for move- 

 ment might attract instant unfavorable attention. 



A Gray Squirrel spread and flattened motionless against the 

 trunk of a tulip poplar s effectively a mimic on the irregularly 

 colored gray bark against a flying or stationary hawk and often 

 against a gunner. On the other hand a moving squirrel can be 

 readily located by a perching hawk. That sudden movement 

 causes alarm is shown by the well known fact that weasels, mice, 

 rabbits, and many other species may play about and even cross the 

 feet of a person who remains quiet, but upon moving they rapidly 

 disappear. 



A party of Audubon people had started a Henslow Sparrow 

 (Coturniculus henslowi) in an old field. It flew to a clump of 

 scanty leaved bushes where about a dozen of us surrounded it. 

 For fully fifteen minutes the party watched it perched motionless 

 about four feet above the ground. It would not fly upwards for 

 the species rarely does except when migrating. It would not fly 

 off on a level at the usual height of its flight for we were in the way. 

 It could not reach the ground as there was not space for its usual 

 downward flight and so it remained perched immobile and but a 

 few feet from the nearest person as long as any cared to stay. In 



