FRAGMENTS 



MANY birds, especially those whose young ones run as 

 soon as hatched, and, being thus dispersed, are more 

 likely to be stumbled on, have various arts to arrest the 

 attention of the chance wanderer, and decoy him from 

 the brood. The lapwing is always most clamorous when 

 you are furthest from the objects of her solicitude. So 

 is the curlew ; but should you approach them, the mother 

 appears quite careless and unconcerned. Grouse and 

 partridges flutter along the ground as if wounded and 

 unable to fly, the latter uttering a most discordant scream. 

 I have always thought these birds overdo their part, 

 and that the lapwing is far superior to them in the art 

 of misleading. The manoeuvres of wild-ducks are similar 

 to those of grouse, and they give notice to the duck- 

 lings when they are to dive by a loud quack, which is 

 instantly obeyed. But the most finished actress I have 

 seen was a mire-snipe, which fluttered up exactly as if 

 the tip of its wing was broken. It flew in this disabled 

 manner for about ten yards, when it fell as if exhausted, 



