50 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



intended victim preparatory to entering on what I knew would be a boot- 

 less pursuit of the second bird, I suddenly thought I noticed the shimmering 

 flight that so often heralds a collapse, and, sure enough, a moment afterwards 

 up went its wings, and the bird fell headlong to the ground. I rushed up 

 and found it lying stone dead within a few yards of a thick coppice ; had 

 it gone a little further I should probably have lost it even then. I owed 

 my success entirely to the Stone-Curlew's readiness to crouch, and, as most 

 persons find it so hard to get within range, I cannot help thinking that the 

 formation of the ground at this particular place makes the birds unusually 

 ready to adopt these tactics. Half a mile off we are visible to them, and 

 then disappear into a gully. If they don't go then, we are within two 

 hundred yards at our next appearance, and possibly catch them in two 

 minds, a state of things that results in their adopting the more timid 

 policy of crouching. If the slope were gradual, I believe that they would 

 always take wing at about three hundred yards. 



One can hardly leave the Stone-Curlew without reference to the ex- 

 haustive account of the actions of an East Anglian colony contributed to 

 the pages of the ' Zoologist ' by Mr. Selous. The writer was enabled to 

 get quite close to a large flock day after day for two months, and during 

 that period he acquired a most interesting insight into the habits of these 

 extraordinary birds. His description of their evening chase after moths and 

 other insects, some of them on the wing, is paralleled in my own experience 

 by the behaviour of a tame Lesser Black-backed Gull, which never seemed 

 so happy as when a swarm of insects descended on the lawn. His antics 

 must have been very similar to those of the Stone-Curlews, for he caught 

 his prey both settled and flying, sometimes using his wings to aid him, 

 and sometimes merely darting along the ground. 



Another interesting member of the Plover tribe, which is supposed to visit 

 the downs for a few days on migration, is the Dotterel. I have never had the 

 good fortune to meet with it myself except in Norfolk, by the sea-shore, and I 

 fancy that its route lies through Kent and Sussex rather than Hampshire. 



The beautiful Lapwing, whose aerial gambols lend such a charm to 

 springtime, is, I am glad to say, rapidly recovering its numbers. At one 

 time, round Winchester it seemed to have reached the verge of extinction 

 as a breeding species, and many were the uplands on which it had ceased 

 to rear its young. Now, thanks to some unknown cause, perhaps the fact 

 that it did not pay to spend an afternoon hunting for its eggs, its wild 

 note and strange drumming can again be heard in most of its old 

 haunts, and the birds seem thoroughly to have re-established themselves. 



