STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 6i 



in this strange position it kept uttering a long, low, 

 hoarse note, which, together with its whole demeanour, 

 seemed to betoken great distress. It remained thus 

 for some minutes before flying away, during which 

 time I stood still, watching it closely, and when it was 

 gone, soon found the nest, with four eggs in it, in 

 the grass-tuft from which it had flown. Its action 

 whilst spinning over the ground was very like that 

 of the nightjar when put up from her young ones." 

 It is to be noted here that this snipe flew a very 

 little way from the nest, and when on the ground 

 did not travel over it to any extent, but only in 

 a small circle just at first, after which it kept in one 

 place. The Arctic skua (Richardson's skua, as some 

 call it, but I hate such appropriative titles — as though 

 a species could be any man's property !) behaves in 

 the same kind of way, for, lying along on its breast, 

 with its wings spread out and beating the ground, 

 it utters plaintive little pitiful cries, keeping always 

 in the same, or nearly the same, spot. This has, 

 of course, the effect of drawing one's attention to 

 the bird, and away from the eggs or young (whether 

 it acts thus in regard to both I am not quite sure, 

 but believe that it does), but the effect produced on 

 one — though here, of course, as throughout, I only 

 speak for myself — is that the bird is in great mental 

 distress — prostrated as it were — rather than acting 

 with any conscious " intent to deceive." The same is 

 the case with the nightjar, whose sudden spinning 

 about over the ground in a manner much more 

 resembling a maimed bluebottle or cockchafer than 

 a bird, seems to proceed from some violent nervous 

 shock or mental disturbance. The same, too, though 



