THE RINGED-PLOVERS 353 



herbage or over the ground save its eggs by diverting attention 

 to itself. 



The inability of the individual to take instant flight, and its 

 efforts to overcome the same, have, by diverting the attention of the 

 enemy from the nest, proved a benefit to the species, and become, by 

 natural selection, an instinctive act having various forms. When a 

 pratincole observes an intruder on its nesting-ground, it will prostrate 

 itself on the ground with both wings extended and its head thrown 

 back in a supplicating manner even when not very near its nest. 

 If we ascribe conscious feigning of a broken wing to the ringed-plover, 

 we might equally well describe the pratincole as entreating the 

 intruder to come no further. It is injudicious to judge the actions of 

 birds by human standards, but, as Mr. Selous argues, " May we not 

 think that an act which in its origin has been of a nervous and, as it 

 were, pathological character, has become, in time, blended with 

 intelligence, and that natural selection has not only picked out those 

 birds who best performed a mechanical action which, though it 

 sprang merely from mental disturbance, was yet of a beneficial 

 nature but also those whose intelligence began, after a time, to 

 enable them to see whereto such action tended, and thus consciously 

 to guide and improve it ? " l 



The young are protected not only by the ruses of their parents, 

 but by their own protective coloration. The young in down of both 

 species are most difficult to see, whether on sand or shingle. They 

 crouch almost as flat on the ground as does the stone-curlew, but 

 show less dependence on the instinct than that species. They do not 

 persist in crouching when handled, but will run off, the brood 

 scattering in different directions. They run very quickly, holding out 

 their little wings to help to balance themselves, but they often fall 

 over stones or depressions in the ground, pick themselves up, and 

 struggle on again in a very comical manner. 



Flocking commences directly the young can fly. The inland- 



1 Bird Watching, p. 63. 



