136 Poachers and Poaching. 



to that of the purple heather among which it lies, 

 as do the richly-speckled eggs. The partridge has 

 a double protection. It is difficult to pick out her 

 quiet brown plumage from a hedge-bottom so 

 long as she remains still. She adopts the duns 

 and browns and yellows of the dead leaves, 

 among which she crouches. When she leaves 

 her eggs she is careful to cover them with dead 

 oak-leaves ; but this seems almost superfluous, for 

 there is no great contrast between the tint of 

 the eggs and that of the leaves among which 

 they lie. A hen pheasant lying in a bracken- 

 bed is equally difficult to detect ; and this applies 

 particularly to all the young of the game birds 

 just mentioned. The bright, dark eyes of birds 

 and animals frequently betray them, as these are 

 almost invariably large and prominent. A short- 

 eared owl on a peat-moss I have mistaken for a 

 clod of turf, and a gaunt heron with wind- 

 fluttered feathers for drift stuff caught in the 

 swaying branches of the stream. Another 

 characteristic case of protective imitation is 

 furnished by the nightjar or goatsucker. This 

 night-flying bird, half owl, half swallow, rests 

 during the day on bare bits of limestone on the 

 fells. Its mottled plumage exactly corresponds 

 with the grey of the stones, and its eggs, in 

 colour like its plumage, are laid upon the bare 

 ground without the slightest vestige of a nest 

 and again entirely resemble the stone. 



