76 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



There was a little brown spot, a mere speck apparently of 

 mud, such as might have been heaved up by an oar-thrust, 

 on the farthermost bit of naked flat. It appeared to move, 

 the merest turn of a small head, perhaps, and then it was 

 motionless as a stone. 



" Hand us my glasses, Jary ! " 



That mud-like fragment at once resolves itself into a small 

 wading bird, and on my shouting and clapping my hands it 

 lifts its head, looks round wonderingly, and finding nothing 

 very threatening near at hand, tucks its bill under its grey 

 wing-coverts and drops off, in an instant, into soundest sleep 

 once more. 



The curious way in which the keenest ornithologist may 

 often be deceived by birds remaining perfectly still is a 

 matter for remark. So curiously do birds, standing or sitting 

 perfectly motionless, deceive the eye and the mind together, 

 that the gunner is sometimes entirely off his guard, and his 

 would-be victims profit by it, making good their escape. I 

 have a vivid recollection of a number of ringed plovers 

 watching my movements when on the look-out for innocent 

 objects for slaughter. They remained as quiescent as the 

 stones they had been running amongst, and their black vests 

 only catching my eye, caused me to believe that what I saw 

 was but a scattering of empty mussel-shells. On walking 

 up to get a nearer look, each supposed empty bivalve started 

 into being, and flew away in safety before I could recover 

 from my surprise. The most curious thing is that the gunner 

 almost invariably starts to make examination without pre- 

 paring for the surprise awaiting him. One moonlight night 

 I rowed up to within a few yards of a large but scattered 

 flock of curlews. I knew there were curlews about, but so 

 quiet and immovable did they remain that I argued within 

 myself as to whether or not they were stranded lumps of 

 broken baskets and seaweed ; and just as it dawned upon me 

 that they might be curlews, with a startling clamour such 

 as only frightened curlews can make every one of them 

 took to wing and vanished into the night. 



My friend Dye some years ago, when he could see, on a 

 bright spring day observed three objects which he thought to 

 be half-bricks dropped in the mud. He passed on, and then 

 curiosity tempted him to get a nearer view. Still half- 



