188 BIRDS AND MAN 



this coast I have had the rare good fortune to 

 find a number of pairs breeding at one spot on 

 private enclosed land, where I could approach 

 them very closely, and watch them any day for 

 hours at a stretch, studying their curious sign- 

 language, about which nothing, to my know- 

 ledge, has hitherto been written. There were 

 about thirty pairs, and their breeding-holes were 

 mostly rabbit-burrows scattered about on a piece 

 of sandy ground, about an acre and a half in 

 extent, almost surrounded by water. When I 

 watched them the birds were laying ; and at 

 about ten o'clock in the morning they would 

 begin to come in from the sea in pairs, all to 

 settle down at one spot ; and by creeping some 

 distance at the waterside among the rushes, I 

 could get within forty yards of them, and watch 

 them by the hour without being discovered by 

 them. In an hour or so there would be forty 

 or fifty birds forming a flock, each couple always 

 keeping close together, some sitting on the short 

 grass, others standing, all very quiet. At length 

 one bird in the flock would all at once begin to 

 move his head in a slow, measured manner from 

 side to side, like a pianist swaying his body in 



