BY INLAND WATERS 117 



pulse to be a skylark, and emit the shrill, pretty- 

 pipe of his species. We boys used to see them 

 sometimes a long way from water, in the corn-fields 

 or the mowing, though it did not occur to us then, 

 nor to our parents, that they were beneficently 

 engaged on a search for insects. The little sand- 

 pipers, almost as soon as they are hatched, begin to 

 run and teeter their tails, like their parents, regular 

 little replicas of the old folks. 



Once upon a time, like every other normal boy, I 

 determined to collect birds' eggs. This juvenile in- 

 stinct has, of course, been the cause of untold de- 

 struction to bird life, and should never be per- 

 mitted indulgence except under careful supervision. 

 But in my case I met with an early, severe, and dis- 

 couraging setback. I attempted to secure the eggs 

 of a belted kingfisher. Perhaps I might have done 

 so if I had made the attempt slightly earlier, but I 

 unfortunately waited till early in June, as I recall 

 it — at any rate, till after the eggs were hatched. 

 Just why I procrastinated I do not now recall, un- 

 less it was because I have always found procrasti- 

 nation easy. But wait I did. The nest was dis- 

 covered by another boy and myself in a bank of 

 red sugar gravel so far from a pond that we couldn't 

 believe at first the kingfishers were making it, 

 though we several times saw them go in and out. 

 Not being endowed with the patience of naturalists, 

 we did not sit by to watch them work, and did 

 not then know that it takes them two weeks to ex- 

 cavate their tunnel, or that it is often as much as 

 eight feet from the entrance to the nest. Not 

 knowing this fact, nor the date of incubation, I set 



