Birds by Land and Sea 



burrow. Having dutifully attended her to the 

 doorstep, so to say, he seemed to wave a lofty adieu, 

 and straightway betake himself to more congenial 

 occupations, only suspended to perform an act of 

 necessary courtesy. Beyond the fact that Madam 

 Sheldrake never came home alone, I soon observed 

 that she never came out by the way by which she 

 went in. Farther along these rocks is a small cove, 

 and where the land proper begins is a sheltered 

 corner with a clump of high bushes. This was the 

 invariable place of exit of the female sheldrake. It 

 was connected with what we may call the front-door 

 entrance by a continuous stretch of bracken. Once 

 we saw the bird alight upon arrival and run through 

 the bracken, but spent fruitless hours in trying to 

 trace her burrow. At another time we hid near and 

 rushed up immediately the birds had passed the 

 ridge, upon which both wheeled round and went out 

 to sea again. However, if we failed to find the 

 nesting-burrow, we at least learned something of the 

 habits the cast-iron habits of the sheldrake. 



We were told that a nest of young " dotterels " 

 was to be seen farther up the coast, and entering at 

 a little shingly cove, emerged upon a strip of higher 

 grassland inshore, edged on each side by rising 

 ground covered with bracken. Already at the 

 entrance to the cove the cock bird met us, piping, 

 like the true ringed plover (!) he was, that he was 

 the only huntable bird in that part of the world, and 

 that he was going quite the opposite way to that in 



206 



