138 Poachers and Poaching. 



afford to do this, but instead build neat nests 

 leaving no trace without. Several of our leaf- 

 warblers drag dead leaves to the outside of 

 their nests, and a hundred others employ like 

 ingenuities. 



With regard to sexual colour, the dull summer 

 plumage which characterises so many ground- 

 breeding birds is all the more remarkable as 

 they are the mates of males for the most part 

 distinguished by unusual brilliancy. The few 

 exceptions to this rule are of the most interesting 

 character, and go eminently to prove it. In 

 these exceptions it happens that the female birds 

 are more brightly plumaged than the males. 

 But in nearly the whole of the cases this remark- 

 able trait comes out that the male actually sits 

 upon the eggs. Now this fact more than any other 

 would seem to indicate that the protection afforded 

 by obscure colouring is directly intended to secure 

 the bird's safety during the most critical period of 

 its life-history. And it has been seen that the 

 law of protective colouring most influences those 

 birds which breed on the ground. One remark- 

 able instance of this may be given, that of the 

 dotterel, a bird already mentioned. This is a 

 species of our own avi-fauna, one which breeds 

 on the summits of the highest mountains. Mr. 

 Gould has remarked that dotterel have not 

 unfrequently been shot during the breeding 



