200 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. xiv. 



very tough. These attacks were often of a very vindictive 

 nature, and I expected to see a Httle victim done to death ; 

 but after a severe drubbing, the babe, though apparently 

 half drowned, gets up and runs away. These attacks on the 

 young are revenged by the parents and especially by the 

 male, so that a fight generally ensues. Numbers of young 

 do die, but whether as a result of this treatment I cannot say, 

 but they get trampled on a good deal during these skirmishes 

 between the adult birds. 



The young leave the nests as soon as they are hatched, 

 and many parents took their broods to the little drains which 

 intersected the fields adjoining their nesting area ; these 

 drains are only one spit deep and just the width of a spade. 

 Here the newly-hatched broods find food and shelter from 

 the cold winds. One parent mounts guard alongside, while 

 the other crouches over the young in the drain. Sometimes 

 the little ones all stand beneath the old bird, which does 

 not thus actually cover them, but often they were completely 

 covered for hours. In a day or two, however, the nestlings 

 are strong enough to face the world and form gay little family 

 parties. 



I had occasion to pitch a tent near a drain in which Avocets 

 were hiding their young. The old birds attacked the tent 

 in their usual manner, but, finding it unresponsive, they 

 then ran round it, posturing in an absurd way and screaming 

 loudly all the time. They repeated this behaviour at inter- 

 vals, all one day, but eventually left the tent alone. 



Avocets are fairly well distributed over Texel wherever 

 there is suitable nesting ground. On May 25th I stumbled 

 across an isolated nest in a meadow. The young were just 

 hatching ; two had left the egg and one was emerging. 

 I hastily put up a tent and had just time to get three 

 photographs. The young birds soon became lively. At 

 first they were content to shelter beneath the old bird, 

 and merely poked their heads up through her plumage, 

 after the manner of young Grebes. Fifty yards away 

 another Avocet was crouching in a tussock of thrift, with 

 a brood of three chicks, hatched that morning. These 

 youngsters were " feeling their feet " and revelling in the 

 new and sunny world. A clean sandy track ran from the 

 nest I was watching to the spot where this other group was 

 playing. After a time, my bird walked off her nest, wandered 

 sedately along the sandy path and squatted beside the one 

 sitting in the tussock. Then she called, and her eldest chick 

 ran out of the nest and joined her. Seeing the other three 



