A NATIVE NATURALIST 259 



a height of twenty or thirty feet, hovered over the 

 still water beneath, as if to get a better view of us, 

 to find out what we were doing there ; and as it 

 hovered before us it emitted those sharp, sorrowful 

 little call-notes which have such a charm for me. And 

 every time the small bird rose and hovered before us 

 the dog raised his head and watched it excitedly, then 

 looked up into his master's face. Then the little 

 thing with an anxious mind would drop back on the 

 turf again and go on seeking its food as before, so 

 near to us that we could distinctly see its bright eyes 

 and thin little pale brown legs and all the markings 

 and shadings of its pretty winter plumage the olive- 

 browns and dull blacks, the whites and the cream 

 faintly tinged with buff on the striped breast. 



By and by I got up and strolled away to the dunes 

 on the sea-front, and when I had gone about seventy 

 or eighty yards a shot rang out behind me. Glancing 

 back I saw that the sportsman had also got up and 

 was now walking to a point among the dunes where 

 he had planned to lie in wait for the geese. The 

 retriever was some distance behind, playing with 

 something ; and then, instead of following his master, 

 he came on to me, and seeing that he was carrying 

 something I stooped down and drew it from his 

 mouth. It was the titling the little meadow-pipit ; 

 its anxious little question and challenge had been 

 answered with an idle charge of shot when it flew up 

 and hovered before the man with a gun. 



I suppose that his motive, if he had one, was to 

 give his dog a few minutes' amusement in retrieving 



