BIRD NOTES 33 



not watched them would imagine. The time of 

 incubation is twenty-eight days from the time of 

 laying the first egg. The young run as soon as 

 hatched. They have a habit of squatting at a note 

 of warning from the parent birds, and the eye, once 

 moved from a crouching chick, almost invariably 

 fails to see it again. So closely will a young bird 

 skulk that one may sometimes lay a hand upon it. 

 The young birds are very soon taken by their elders 

 to the tide-mark, and first lessons in sandhopper- 

 catching are taught them. 



When a flock of Ringed Plovers observe anyone 

 approaching they usually remain perfectly quiescent 

 upon the shingle patches, neither moving nor piping. 

 And so closely does their plumage assimilate with 

 their surroundings that I have actually been deceived. 

 The black of their breasts, as they faced me, on one 

 occasion was so suggestive that I remarked to a 

 friend 



"Look yonder: I wonder who in the world has 

 been emptying mussel -shells upon the beach?" 

 But the supposed empty bivalves suddenly closed 

 as the birds, on an alarm being sounded by a 

 sentry-bird, wheeled and ran, and directly afterwards 

 took to flight. 

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