THE OOLOGIST 



131 



search we had made that we could 

 have passed over the nests, we would 

 mark the exact spot from which we 

 saw a bird appear and hunt for a 

 space of twenty feet in each direction, 

 getting down on our knees and go over 

 every spot. I then suggested that we 

 take a long rope that I had brought 

 along for the purpose and "drag" the 

 Glasswort and see what results we 

 would have. This we did and it was 

 not long before we flushed a bird that 

 appeared to have been startled from 

 its nest, dropping our rope we walked 

 into the middle of the rope and began 

 hunting and about fifty feet ahead of 

 the rope we found it on the ground 

 nicely concealed from sight above and 

 it contained three heavily incubated 

 eggs, the nest was composed of grass 

 and was about an inch above the 

 ground. To say that we were elated 

 is expressing it mildly and we did a 

 regular Indian Tango or some other 

 kind of dance. The eggs were a pale 

 greenish white heavily speckled and 

 sprinkled with brownish and measured 

 as follows: .S0x.56; .83x.56; .79x.57. 



After finding this set we kept on 

 and flushed many birds but the most 

 minute searching failed to disclose 

 another nest. Returning to our boat 

 near dusk we laid our plans for the 

 next day and vowed we would find 

 more nests or never leave the spot. 

 The next day we tried another beat 

 up the Island and it was not long un- 

 til we found a trio of young birds just 

 beginning to fly, I captured one after a 

 long chase, he would run on the 

 ground just like a rat and in chasing 

 him I saw several adult birds likewise 

 and immediately came to the conclu- 

 sion that that was one reason we had 

 not been more fortunate in finding the 

 nests. There was no cattle grazing 

 here so that the birds at the very first 

 noise hopped from the nests and ran 

 along on the ground for a long way 



and then came into view and were 

 probably fifty feet from their nests 

 when they first appeared. After get- 

 ting wise to their tactics we changed 

 ours and began working to the wind- 

 ward all the time so as to get nearer 

 to them before they heard us, this 

 proved the right thing and it was not 

 long before we came upon a nest of 

 three young birds that left the nest on 

 our getting within a few feet of them, 

 this nest was made exactly like the 

 first one in every way and in the four 

 days we found two more nests of 

 young and two more sets of eggs, the 

 second set of eggs contained five and 

 were heavily incubated marked very 

 similar to the first set and measured 

 as follows: .83x.58; .82x.57; .79x.56; 

 !82x.59; .83x.59. The third set contain- 

 ed three eggs which measured .83x.59; 

 .S2x.58; .82x.59 and were heavily in- 

 cubated, in fact one of them was pip- 

 ped when we got back to the boat and 

 I was unable to save but one egg of 

 this set. This last nest was the only 

 one that was not within an inch of 

 the ground, it was up in a bunch of 

 dried Glasswort about ten inches from 

 the ground and we surprised the fe- 

 male on the nest; she was evidently 

 asleep and coming up to her to wind- 

 ward in a hard wind she did not hear 

 us. 



I have hunted eggs over this state 

 in all kinds of places, and many of 

 them hard places, but this trip taken 

 as a whole was about the toughest 

 proposition I ever tackled. The mos- 

 quitoes were about in hordes day and 

 night and the heat was terrific not- 

 withstanding the stiff wind that blew 

 most of the time. Then the marsh 

 was very dry and abounded in rabbits, 

 this no doubt was what attracted the 

 snakes to it, because we were all the 

 time dodging Moccasins and Rattle 

 snakes, one could not see where he 

 was walking in the Glasswort as it 



