THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 107 



would be least likely to seek for them. They are four in 

 number, of an olive grey, blotched with dusky, and arranged 

 with the four small ends in the centre. The female sits and 

 the male keeps watch during the night ; and when the sun 

 becomes hot, the female creeps warily from the nest to some 

 place where she can feed ; but though that is the tempting 

 time for feeding, she returns to her eggs whenever it gets raw 

 and cloudy, or rain begins to fall. When upon the nest, she 

 sits so close, crouches so low, and so resembles in colour the 

 mixture of heath and grass with which the surface is covered, 

 that she is not easily seen ; and when she takes the wing, it 

 is always at a considerable distance from the nest, and when 

 she rises, she turns and flies back again at an angle, so that 

 one would be apt to suppose that the nest is in a direction 

 quite different from the real one. 



The male very often assists in those practices for the mis- 

 leading of an enemy, especially of a dog, before which he will 

 alight, fly a little, alight again, drop a wing as if it were 

 broken, run haltingly, but always rise and be off a little 

 when nearly caught, and so entice the enemy to a consider- 

 able distance ; and having done so, he will peal his whistle of 

 defiance over the moor, take a long and wheeling flight, and 

 return to his wardership by another route. 



The young when they leave the egg are covered with a 

 dusky coloured down, and they are a considerable time in 

 acquiring their plumage to such an extent as that they can 

 fly ; but they soon run swiftly, and skulk and conceal them- 

 selves so that they are but seldom seen. The parents feed 

 them for some time ; and are assiduous in continuing the arts 

 by which enemies may be enticed away. 



After the young have become able to fly, their plumage 

 differs so much from that of the old birds, that they have 

 been described as different species ; and as the plumage dif- 

 fers both in the males and the females, the finding of both 



