362 THE PLOYERS 



eye on the source of danger. Like lapwings, they will follow an 

 intruder a long way from the nest seeing him safely off the ground, 

 as it were and then wheeling round fly back to their home. 



When the young are hatched the parents are even more solicitous 

 and noisy, occasionally, when pressed, resorting to the so-called injury- 

 feigning device. 



When disturbed whilst sitting, the golden-plover generally runs 

 from the nest, warned as just stated by an alarm-note from 

 its mate, who stands on guard on a slight eminence some distance 

 off. But they do not always behave in the same way. One 

 may rise straight from the eggs while the intruder is two hundred 

 yards away, another creeps off and runs stealthily through the 

 heather, while but more rarely a bird may remain on the nest, 

 and allow itself to be all but trodden on before it goes. 1 

 It very likely depends on the sex of the sitting bird. If it is the 

 female, the male is pretty sure to be on guard and give an alarm, so 

 that the female has time to leave the nest stealthily. When the male 

 is sitting the female is less likely to play sentry, and it is fairly well 

 proved that the sitting males of other species for instance, the lap- 

 wing nearly always fly straight from the nest. It is a point that 

 would repay careful observation, but it is fraught with much difficulty, 

 as there is very little sexual difference in plumage throughout the 

 group. 



Mr. Trevor-Batty e states of the grey-plover that the male is 

 exceedingly wild and wary. He sits on a raised point a little distance 

 from the nest, and warns the female of danger by an alarm-note, 

 when she runs from the nest and joins him. Mr. Trevor-Batty e saw 

 females " feign lameness," but not males. 2 He does not mention the 

 curious flight of the males recorded on page 359 as observed by 

 Harvie-Brown and Seebohm, who also stated that males as well as 

 females display in the " injury feigning " habit. In one instance a 



1 Seton-Gordon, Birds of Loch and Mountain, p 68 ; and Chapman, Bird-life of the 

 Borders, p. 30. 2 Icebound on Kolguev, p. 432. 



