on Rearing Sandpipers. 323


Micklefield, and the “pink un’s” from Scarboro’ would scarcely

do.


I felt that the only thing was to try various likely dainties.

The common or garden worm was an obvious thought. Away

I went and dug for dear life ; but as the ground was as hard

as a brick-bat, or shall we say—the heart of a brother avi-

culturist—the yield was not encouraging. I hurried back with

what food I could get, and laid them down with some ceremony

before the family. An Alderman at a City feast, if offered rice

pudding in place of rich Turtle, could not have looked more

disdainful. They simply did to the worms what the Israelites

did to Jericho—they trod them under foot. Here was a nice

predicament. Mealworms might do, but where was I to get

mealworms to feed a family of hungry Sandpipers in July? Only

a week before I had bought a quart at ten shillings, and was told

plaintively that “ they was getting wery scarce.” At the price

Sandpipers would soon literally be worth their weight in gold.


A buzzing bluebottle suggested the humble but succulent

maggot. I had a few. I humbly placed some on a saucer and

turned away my head. When I looked again a moment later,

they were gone completely, and the little Sandpipers were like

David Copperfield “plainly asking for more.” More I could not

give them for my supply was very limited. I set about there¬

fore and made them some food of my own, on the off chance

that they would take to it. Failing this, I determined to give

them their liberty, sooner than see them die before my eyes.

To my intense surprise they took to it most kindly, and when I

went to look at them in the morning, instead of finding them all

dead corpses, I found as merry a party of Sandpipers as ever

you saw.


The soft peep, peep, peep, never ceased for many days. I

suppose it is by the voice that they keep in touch with each

other when at liberty. After each feed they regularly ran back

to their mother for warmth, comfort, and forty winks.


For a few days the wire divisions seemed to puzzle them,

and they used to roam up and down as restlessly as some of the

beasts do at the Zoo.



