1 3 o ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. 



our commoner birds. Every observer of Nature 

 is familiar with the ways of the Lapwing, when 

 its nest or young is menaced by danger. The 

 watchful birds rise from the moorlands and the 

 fallows the moment you set foot upon them, 

 and wheel and tumble in the air, uttering their 

 plaintive cries, seeking to attract your attention 

 to themselves. With an artfulness we cannot 

 help admiring the Lapwings become more and 

 more anxious the farther you get from their nests, 

 and very often, when the eggs are lying exposed 

 to view at your feet, the parents will assume the 

 utmost indifference. Should the birds have 

 young, their actions become even more demon- 

 strative, and I have known them on such occa- 

 sions tumble along the ground in anguish, and 

 appear wounded and helpless for the few brief 

 moments which give the nestlings time to scatter 

 and conceal themselves among the herbage. 



Nestling birds are also full of deceit and 

 trickery ; they are born with it in their nature, 

 and practise many wiles to save themselves from 

 harm, without tuition or experience. The young 

 of all these Sandpipers and Game Birds and 

 Plovers are hatched covered with down, which is 

 striped and mottled with colour best adapted to 

 concealment among the vegetation or shingle 

 where they are born. The moment the more 

 wary and watchful old birds give the warning cry, 

 the broods of young scatter to all points of the 

 compass, and conceal themselves wherever they 



