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On Rearing Sandpipers.



THE REARING OF THE SANDPIPER.


By the Rev. C. D. Farrar.


To know just how good brandy is in a mince pie, you

must be a Protectionist. I suppose the zest of anything depends

on the deprivation if not on the prohibition. I remember that a

great traveller once said to me, that the much vaunted cataract

of the Ganges was a poverty stricken puddle, but that in a

country where there is no water, a puddle looked like an inunda¬

tion. It is much the same with me at present. Having parted

with all my rare birds, I am for the present compelled to make

the most of what we will call the less rare.


For some odd reason chances do not come readily to those

who greatly desire them ; therefore it is no wonder that when

they do. we behave as though we were singing the song of

Hannah. I had much her feeling of exultation when one

summer afternoon in early July, I secured my family of Sand¬

pipers.


They were “bred and born,” as Brer Rabbit was so fond of

saying, on the banks of the Aire, but far far away from smoky

Leeds, and I fancy that when I have related all the circumstances

of their up-bringing the Council will feel that in very admiration

they are bound to make an exception in this case and award

me a Medal!


When discovered the little Sandpipers were barely out of

the egg shell. In fact they were not dry, and so tiny were they

that they looked like big bumble bees on legs. So feeble was the

spark of life that they had to be warmed in the kitchen oven, or

what Shakspeare calls :


“The vital spark of heavenly flame”

would have very quickly disappeared. There were three of the

little beauties and the mother also came to me, but we will not

say how. To have taken the babies and left the mother would

have been not only gross cruelty, but madness ; and I was going

to run no risks.


Whether my walk or their lives would end first, was for a

time a very nice problem. Fortunately, I managed to get them to



