268 EEPORT OF FIELD MEETINGS. 



almost touching us in their anxiety to entice us away. After 

 a most careful search my sister found one of the young 

 squatting among the gravel, and on calling me to come to her, 

 I found a second similarly squatting about two yards distant. 

 Though we searched carefully, we could not find the others. 

 Within a few yards we also found some young Peewits hiding 

 on the sand and gravel. 



" Next, in walking along the side of the river, in a rank 

 pasture, we put up a Corncrake at our feet, and on looking 

 among the grass we were lucky enough to find three of the 

 young ones, which were apparently just hatched. They were 

 most lovely little creatures, very like young water hens, but 

 instead of being black, they were of a rich dark brown 

 colour. I had never seen a young Corncrake alive previously. 

 Presently, along the bend of the river, where it was overgrown 

 with long grass, we flushed a Water Hen. There was no 

 difficulty in finding her nest, as one or two young scrambled 

 into the water and showed us where it was. In it were some 

 eggs, one of which was already chipped ready for the young 

 one to emerge. 



" Next day we visited the lake where the Black-headed Gulls 

 breed. There were as usual hundreds of the old birds flying 

 about, but at first we could not distinguish any young ones on 

 the wing. On getting to the breeding place we found that 

 there were still lots of eggs and many young just hatched, but 

 very few of any size. The inference to be drawn from this 

 fact is that most of the early eggs had been taken, as by the 

 end of June most of the young should have been able to fly. 

 Later on we saw a few young birds flying about with the old 

 ones, but very few. At the lake we also saw Wild Duck and 

 Teal, and we discovered some very young Teal chicks swimming 

 about in the water, but when approached they got under the 

 heather hanging over the water and disappeared from view. 



"Perhaps the most interesting sight we saw was a Wild Duck 

 hiding its young from us. We had seen some Redshanks, and 

 were watching them to see if we could make out where they 

 had their young. One of the birds alighted near the middle 



