VOL. VIII.] NOTES ON CURLEW-SANDPIPER. 179 



I found the bird in the same neighbourhood, and 

 still by herself, but this time she sprang up at my 

 approach and whirled away down the slope, with a 

 shrill three-fold call : " wiek-a-wiek, wiek-a-wiek." I lay 

 down among some broken ground about eighty yards 

 from the place where the Sandpiper had appeared, and 

 waited for about half-an-hour. At the end of this time, 

 as there was no sign of the bird, I became suspicious, 

 and reconnoitred behind me. There was the Sandpiper 

 on a tussock about twenty yards away. She had been 

 watching me all the time ! I therefore moved to another 

 spot about fifty yards further up the hill, and lay down 

 again. The bird immediately flew over to the place 

 where I had first seen her, but owing to her small size 

 and the broken nature of the ground it was difficult 

 to keep her under continual observation. I flushed 

 her twice, but she never rose from the same place, and 

 search failed to reveal the nest. I therefore marked the 

 two planes of the area where I roughly estimated that 

 the eggs might lie with white goose-feathers, pegged 

 down of course with the ever useful hairpin ! When 

 working alone on the tundra, it was nearly always 

 necessary to do tliis, for owing to the nature of the 

 ground and the entire absence of land-marks, it was 

 possible to flush a bird several times and then not 

 arrive within yards of the nest. 



By dint of putting up the Curlew-Sandpiper once 

 or twice, and locating her position by the white 

 feathers wliich were visible to the naked eye, I 

 marked her down into a hollow behind a little ridge. 

 I gave her a few minutes to settle herself wliile a 

 sleet shower came driving over the tundra. All at 

 once a Buffon's Skua flew overhead. I raised my 

 gun and shot him, and as I did so I saw the Curlew- 

 Sandpiper spring up from the very place that I had 

 marked. As I approached she ran away, drooping a 

 wing, and in half a minute the nest was at my feet. 

 I must have walked right over the place on the 



