THE STONE-CURLEW 243 



three, as indeed there appear to be in the several variants of the 

 above that go to make up the stone-curlew's repertoire of wild wailing 

 cries. 



When the young are hatched the parents are even more silent 

 and stealthy in their behaviour. They display none of the fussy 

 anxiety so characteristic at this time of most Waders, but seem to 

 trust implicitly to the practical invisibility of their chicks to protect 

 them; and as for themselves, they can help best when danger 

 threatens by being out of the way, and they go swiftly, silently, and 

 without showing themselves. The chicks meanwhile crouch flat on 

 the ground and remain immovable until the danger passes and their 

 parents return. 



This habit of crouching is common to most Waders and other 

 ground-nesting birds, but while others use it in conjunction with 

 devices, such as repeated warning-notes to the skulking chicks, with 

 endeavours to drive away an intruder, as in the case of the lapwing, or 

 with the so-called feigning of an injury, the stone-curlew trusts entirely 

 to the protective coloration. One can hardly imagine this stately bird 

 doing anything so undignified as shuffling along over the ground 

 shamming injury, or anything so futile as flying to and fro over the 

 spot where its young are concealed, with noisy wing-beats and 

 anxious cries. So far as I have been able to discover, it does not 

 even give a warning-note to the young, its swift stealthy disappearance 

 being apparently the signal for the young birds to freeze to the 

 ground, and they need no warning not to move. Living as a rule on 

 ground bare of cover, they cannot run into grass and other herbage 

 to hide as do many Waders, nor need they do so, for the coloration 

 and texture of their downy covering harmonises so exactly with the 

 sandy flint-flecked soil, and they prostrate themselves so completely, 

 that they appear no more than a slight irregularity of the surface. 



The extreme phase of the crouching attitude is not developed 

 until the young birds are about a week old. They crouch almost as 

 soon as they leave the egg-shell, but the body then is somewhat 



VOL. in. 2 1 



