94 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



automatic certainty. It is like pressing the button 

 and the figure works. " Whilst these birds," 

 says Mr. Selous, " have always, in my experience, 

 gone off, so to speak, like clockwork when the 

 occasion for it arrived, I have never known a 

 peewit to do so, though I have probably disturbed 

 as many scores perhaps hundreds of them, under 

 the requisite conditions, as I have units of the 

 others." It is not a point on which one can affect 

 certainty unless fresh from observation ; but if 

 the peewit does not try broken wing, it unques- 

 tionably does try, by methods of its own, to lead 

 possible enemies away from eggs or young. The 

 strategy I have watched scores of times, and in 

 its main lines it is always the same. The hen 

 bird runs away furtively, hardly ever rising. 

 Meanwhile her mate flies about in a low and 

 distressed fashion, uttering cries of alarm. He 

 always manages to convey the impression that it 

 would be easy to catch him. Tried on a man 

 the device is invariably a failure, for the stupidest 

 schoolboy at once sees through the dodge. 

 Indeed, far from being a protection, the trick is 

 a disadvantage, since it acts as an advertisement 

 that eggs or young are here. But it is very 

 different when the enemy is a dog. The most 

 intelligent canine is at once filled with a wild 

 faith that he can catch the bird, so away he goes 

 after it ; and one has only to see the performance 

 to feel that the instinct was originally developed 

 for the frustration of enemies of this kind. The 

 Wild Birds Protection Acts do more for the peewit 

 in these days than all its native arts. 



