350 THE PLOVERS 



them would return to the nest, I crept out to fetch back the truant. 

 When I showed myself, the old birds flew off with a warning cry, 

 and search as I would I could not find the chick. 



I hid myself again, arranging the tent so that I could see farther 

 afield. The ringed-plovers soon returned to the spot where their 

 chick was hiding, and I saw it run towards its parents, who proceeded 

 to conduct it farther away. Keeping a close eye on it, I suddenly 

 showed myself, saw the chick drop flat, and having marked the spot, 

 easily found it. It had moved more than a hundred yards from the 

 nest. I took it with me into the tent and put it into a safe place. As 

 the remaining youngster was apparently too weak to leave the nest, 

 the old birds now approached readily enough. And now occurred 

 what looked like concerted action, for, while the male ran to the nest 

 and brooded the egg and chick, the female came behind the tent, 

 and shuffled about on the ground, squeaking and flapping a wing, as 

 though intent on attracting attention to herself, while by arrangement 

 her mate attended to the family. 



I had a similar experience with a pair of Kentish-plovers, only in 

 this case I was fifty feet away, buried in the shingle. The camera was 

 placed some eight feet from the nest, and I operated the shutter by 

 means of a long pneumatic release. The nest contained two eggs and 

 a recently hatched chick. (PL LII., Fig. 1.) The two little plovers 

 commenced by running round the nest in large circles, passing me 

 at first within a few feet, then gradually closing in until but a few 

 yards from the nest. At last the male ran on to the nest and com- 

 menced to brood, while the female behind the camera shuffled about 

 on the shingle in an apparently helpless condition. 



The Kentish-plover has also been described as flying close 

 around the head of an intruder, giving at each stroke of the wings a 

 sharp whistle, and then dropping as if shot, following this with the 

 inj ury-feigning demonstration. l 



It would be rash to describe the ringed-plover as more given to 



1 Zoologist, 1908, p. 369. 



