AND OTHER BIRDS 103 



Each was fed to the full, yet each seemed, 

 miserlike, to be attempting to grasp more than 

 it was possible to retain. 



After a very thorough, albeit unprofitable 

 investigation of this flat, I crossed the little 

 stream to search other equally likely looking 

 ground ground where, on an earlier visit to 

 Mason Bay, I had noted young Dotterel. Likely- 

 looking as the spot was, the conduct of the birds 

 forbade undue hope, one of them running on my 

 seaward flank, skirmishing alongside of me and 

 always about equidistant. 



In another locality a pair, whose nest I had 

 begun to believe must be somewhere near, 

 when for a moment I sat down wearied with the 

 intolerable gale and the flying sand, perched on 

 a little kopje, the one beside the other, at a few 

 yards distance and inspected me. 



Few experiences have been more depressing 

 to me than this dispassionate curiosity of birds, 

 whose nests for hours I had been looking for. 

 It was proof positive that no eggs were in the 

 vicinity. I began, in fact, to be alarmed lest 

 everywhere the young had been hatched and we 

 had come too late. 



That afternoon my suspicions seemed to be 

 confirmed. There was near the beach a line of 

 higher dunes relics in fact of the old sand 

 rampart well bound with tussock grass and one 

 or two of them crowned with green spurge. 

 Thereabouts, the great anxiety of the Dotterel 

 told me there was some particular object for 

 their concern. 



About these peaks there were at least five 

 birds, and the admonitory whistle of one, would 

 instantly on my return alarm the lot, so that I 



