" From Haunts of Coot and Hern" 127 



are, when once fooled they are fooled utterly, and too often 

 to their sorrow in the shooting season. 



On a mud bank beyond the reach of water where the 

 blue-bills had been paddling we saw some birds flying, and 

 moving about on the ground by turns. We succeeded in 

 getting close enough to say good morning to them all. They 

 were plover, known by the somewhat inelegant name of lesser 

 yellow-legs. These birds, much sought after by sportsmen, 

 seemed like the blue-bills to know that the shooting season was 

 over, and that on this game preserve at least no one was to 

 harm them. Near the yellow-legs we found solitary, spotted, 

 and red-backed sandpipers, and the ring-necked plover. The 

 birds were all as tame as chickens. We went ashore at a 

 place where there seemed to be some certainty of a firm foun- 

 dation for our footsteps and started on a hunt for marsh- 

 wrens. We found none, but we flushed a few jacksnipe and 

 took it for granted from the fact of their late tarrying that 

 they were to nest in the English Lake country. 



The snipe, the plover, the sandpipers, in fact all the shore 

 birds and the deep-water birds with them, form one of the 

 most interesting groups for the purposes of study. The birds 

 are too little known to the student who is not likewise a 

 sportsman. Most of them are with us only during the shoot- 

 ing season, when approach is difficult. Then again, the very 

 nature of their haunts presents an obstacle to familiar knowl- 

 edge. It is hard work to scrape acquaintance with them. 

 Their friendship, if it is to be won, must be had at the 

 expense of much mud, some wading and not a few duckings. 

 If the legislators were wise enough to stop spring shooting, 

 thousands of our shore and water birds that now go to the 

 far North to breed would build their nests in the fields and 



