134 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
and pass and repass fifty times through the scattered 
scrub, knowing all the time that I am walking about 
amongst the birds, as they sit turning their furtive 
eyes to watch my movements, yet concealed from 
me by that wonderful adaptive resemblance in the 
colour of their plumage to the sear grass and foliage 
around them, and by that correlated instinct which 
bids them sit still in their places. I find many 
evidences of their presence — prettily mottled 
feathers dropped when they preened their wings, 
also a dozen or twenty neat circular hollows scooped 
in the sand in which they recently dusted them- 
selves. There are also little chains of footprints 
running from one hollow to the other; for these 
pulverizing pits serve the same birds every day, and, 
there being more birds in the covey than there are 
pits, the bird that does not quickly secure a place 
doubtless runs from pit to pit in search of one un- 
occupied. Doubtless there are many pretty quarrels 
too; and the older, stronger bird, regular in the 
observance of this cleanly luxurious habit, must, 
per fas et nefas, find accommodation somewhere. 
I leave the favoured haunt, but when hardly a 
hundred yards away the birds resume their call in 
the precise spot I have just quitted; first one and 
then two are heard, then twenty voices join in the 
pleasing concert. Already fear, an emotion strong 
but transitory in all wild creatures, has passed from 
them, and they are free and happy as if my wander- 
ing shadow had never fallen across them. 
Twilight comes and brings an end to these useless 
