WATCHING GREAT PLOVERS, ETC. 5 



certain sedateness, almost punctiliousness, of manner, 

 fancifully suggests to one the figure of Don Quixote 

 de la Mancha, the Knight of the rueful counten- 

 ance, with a touch or two, perhaps, thrown in of 

 the old Baron of Bradwardine of Tullyveolan. One 

 can lie on the ground and watch them from far off 

 through the glasses, or, should a belt of bracken 

 fringe the barren area, one has then an excellent 

 opportunity of creeping up to within a short or, at 

 least, a reasonable distance. To do this one must 

 make a wide circuit and enter the bracken a long 

 way off. Then having walked, or rather waded for 

 some way towards them, at a certain point — experi- 

 ence will teach the safety-line — one must sink on 

 one's hands and knees, and the rest is all creeping 

 and wriggling, till at length, lying flat, one's face just 

 pierces the edge of the cover and the harmless glasses 

 are levelled at the quarry one does not wish to kill. 

 The birds are standing in a long, straggling line, 

 ganglion-like in form, swelling out into knots where 

 they are grouped more thickly with thinner spaces 

 between. As they preen themselves — twisting the 

 neck to one or the other side so as to pass the 

 primary quill feathers of the wings through the beak 

 — one may be seen to stoop and lay one side of the 

 head on the ground, the great yellow eye of the other 

 side staring up into the sky in an uncanny sort of 

 way. The meaning of this action I do not know. 

 It is not to scratch the head, for the head is held 

 quite still ; and, moreover, as, like most birds, they can 

 do this very neatly and effectively with the foot, other 

 methods would seem to be superfluous. Again, and 

 this is a more characteristic action, one having stood 



