CHAP, xviir. PLOVERSKI LANGUAGE. 223 



drawn out, the o pronounced as in German, and the con- 

 sonants scarcely sounded. This I am almost sure is the 

 alarm-note. It is principally uttered by the female when 

 she stops and looks round and sees something that she dis- 

 approves of. If the male shows any anxiety about the nest, 

 which he seems to do more and more as incubation pro- 

 gresses, he also utters the same note. The double note, 

 U-ee or Jcleep, the M dwelt upon so as to give it the value of 

 a separate syllable, is also uttered by both birds. It is 

 evidently their call-note. I have seen the female, when she 

 has been running away from the male, turn sharp round and 

 look towards him when he has uttered this note, exactly as 

 any one might do who heard his name called. Whilst we 

 were watching this pair of birds a couple of other grey 

 plovers came up, and called as they flew past. The male 

 answered the call and flew towards them. On the wing this 

 whistle is lengthened out to three notes. I had some diffi- 

 culty in catching this note exactly. It is not so often uttered 

 as the two others I have mentioned, and is generally heard 

 when you least expect it ; but I am almost sure it is a com- 

 bination of the alarm-note with the call-note M-ee-Jcop. If 

 I wanted to make a free translation from Ploverski into 

 English I should say that M-ee means " Hallo ! old fellow," 

 and Mp means " Mind what you are about!" 



We procured our tenth nest of the grey plover the same 

 afternoon. It was found by our Sanaoyede, who brought us 

 three eggs and male and female shot at the nest. He acci- 

 dentally broke the fourth egg. As it contained a live young 

 bird, we placed these three eggs in our hatching-basket, 

 where we had made a snug nest of bean-goose-down. 



