The sandpiper is not her bird. It belongs to 

 the shore, living almost exclusively along sandy, 

 pebbly margins, the margins of any, of almost 

 every water, from Delaware Bay to the tiny 

 bubbling spring in some Minnesota pasture. 

 Neither is the killdeer her bird. The upland 

 claims it, plover though it be. A barren, stony 

 hillside, or even a last year's corn-field left fal- 

 low, is a better -loved breast to the killdeer than 

 the soft brooding breast of the marsh. There 

 are no grass-birds so noisy as these two. Both 

 of them lay their eggs in pebble nests ; and both 

 depend largely for protection upon the harmony 

 of their colors with the general tone of their 

 surroundings. 



I was stiU within sound of the bleating kill- 

 deers when a rather large, greenish-gray bird 

 flapped heavily but noiselessly from a muddy 

 spot in the grass to the top of a stake and faced 

 me. Here was a child of the marsh. Its bolt- 

 upright attitude spoke the watcher in the grass ; 

 then as it stretched its neck toward me, bringing 

 its body parallel to the ground, how the shape 

 of the skulker showed ! This bird was not built 

 to fly nor to perch, but to tread the low, narrow 

 [61] 



