170 Wild Life in Wales 



some others of the Limicolse, the Sandpiper carries its young 

 ones from the nest to more favourable feeding ground. 

 Over and over again I have found newly hatched young, or 

 a nest with chipping eggs, and on repassing the place, some 

 hours later, have found the chicks transported to the stream, 

 perhaps a hundred yards away or more, whither it was 

 impossible that their own powers of locomotion could have 

 brought them. I have never actually proved that the 

 parents carried them, though the heavy flight of one has 

 occasionally made me almost sure that it had a young one 

 pressed to its breast ; but such things are often first noticed 

 by accident, as it were ; and, when once known, everybody 

 begins to see then, and to wonder how it is that he had 

 never observed them before. 



One very wet morning at Llanuwchllyn, I was within an 

 ace of absolutely proving my long-held theory to be correct. 

 It was the tameness of a Sandpiper that ran across the road, 

 literally at my feet, that first attracted attention to the 

 proximity of a nest, or young ; and, in order to watch her, 

 I sat down upon a stone by the side of a field gate that 

 happened to be at hand. As I did so, the male betrayed 

 the whereabouts of the nest, on top of the earth dyke, by 

 flitting off it within a few feet of my head. On looking 

 into it, I found a single young one just emerged from the 

 egg, portions of the shell still adhering to its yet moist and 

 clammy sides. I was rather surprised to find only one 

 occupant of the nest, into which the north wind was driving 

 the rain in a most inhospitable manner that seriously 

 threatened to flood it. Both of the old birds were now 

 tripping about the road at my feet, complaining at my 

 untimely intrusion on their domestic cares ; and, after I had 

 resumed my seat, the female especially often perched upon 

 the top rail of the gate, and ran swaying along it to within 

 an absurdly close distance of my face. I had not sat many 

 minutes before I became aware that the male was attempting 

 to move a young one amongst the grass at the foot of the 

 bank, while his partner showed great interest in a bunch of 

 rushes on the other side of the road. The voting one 

 beside me was in such pitiable plight amongst the wet grass 



