LEARNING TO LIVE 187 



and a few observations may be noted. Although the thou- 

 sands of birds were extraordinarily quick to take alarm, 

 or at least to rise excitedly into the air, they submitted 

 in two or three minutes to the presence of an intruder 

 if he sat quite still under a covering of sacking. The birds 

 would then come within arm's length and settle down, though 

 the shape of the observer, who was peering through holes 

 cut in the sacking, formed the most conspicuous object in 

 the immediate environment. By this method of observa- 

 tion it was possible to make sure of the fact that the same 

 bird came back to the same nest. That is, of course, 

 what one would expect them to do, but as there may be 

 hundreds of nests within a small radius at least half a 

 dozen on an area equal to that of an ordinary dinner-tab 1 e 

 and as the very uniform stretch of mud, tussocks, and 

 bog-bean stems presents to ordinary eyes few distinctive 

 marks, and as there is continuous rising, squabbling, and 

 re-settling, it seemed well to take some pains to fix the 

 attention on birds with some slight peculiarity in their 

 plumage, and to prove that they came back to their proper 

 nest. The extraordinary variability of the eggs may 

 facilitate the recognition of the nest during the da}'. On 

 one occasion it was observed that a very young nestling 

 of the first or second day, which had tumbled out of its own 

 nest and crawled to the next one, was accepted without 

 demur, which seems to be frequently the case with birds 

 that nest in large companies. On the other hand, older 

 youngsters, able to run about, were pecked at very viciously 

 when they came near a brooding bird. 



It was worth while year after year to look at hundreds 

 of nests to get an indelible impression of the extraordinary 

 colour variability. No words can describe it, several 

 plates are necessary, but as the eye passed from, for 

 instance, unspotted pale blue to very dark brown with 



