DECEIVING WILD CREATURES. 31 



and attention instantly, and I could not resist 

 the temptation of exposing another plate. By 

 increasing the volume of feline music, I accom- 

 plished my desire, and, stretching her long legs, 

 she walked slowly away, glancing furtively back- 

 wards over her shoulder as she retired. After 

 walking round and round, picking up and drop- 

 ping straws, thrusting her long bill enquiringly 

 down the earth-shafts of innumerable dung 

 beetles, and listening intently for a repetition of 

 the strangest noise she had probably ever heard 

 in all her life for an hour and a half, the whaup 

 (as the bird is called in Scotland) came quietly 

 back to her nest, and I made another study of 

 her about to sit down and cover her four beautiful 

 olive-green, brown, blotched eggs. This exposure 

 was made with a rapid shutter, as the uplifted 

 foot of the bird shows, and even the slight noise 

 of the mechanism sent her away in great alarm. 



Once or twice when a member of the numerous 

 flock of sheep in the pasture grazed too near the 

 curlew's nest for her liking, she ran round in 

 front and tried to head the intruder off in some 

 other direction. 



In spite of their long abandonment on the 

 previous day the eggs took no harm, and a 

 strong, healthy chick ultimately emerged from 

 each one of them. 



Whilst studying Nature with eye and ear 



