The Snowy Plover 



anything I could do to prevent. He wouldn't pay any attention to me, 

 and the skirt-dance is no fun with nobody looking, so I gave Teddy the 

 plover call, Too leep, too leep, and we went off down the lagoon and had a 

 good bath. There is no use worrying, you know, about things you can't 

 help. 



By and by the man went way, way off and sat down. Only his eyes 

 seemed to get bigger, or rather, he carried his eyes in a black thing that he 

 put up in front of his regular eyes. But the wind was blowing, and I 

 couldn't wait around all day, so I took chances and sneaked back. When 

 I got there my eggs were almost buried out of sight in the drifting sand. 

 I've had that happen before, of course, but I do believe that naughty man 

 held sand up and let the wind blow it over quickly. Well, I showed him. 



I stooped over each egg in turn, stuck my bill down deep under the 

 big end and heaved up, pulling in toward my breast. One of my eggs 

 weighs a quarter as much as I do, so that's no easy trick. Then I sat 

 down and kicked the sand out from between each pair of eggs, tedder- 

 fashion, and sent it skiting in a jolly shower. By the time I had gone the 

 rounds with both operations twice, I had those buried eggs up high and 

 dry and was making mugs at that man with the movable eyes. He took 

 himself off after that. 



But do you know that man was back the very next day with a big 

 black box! He planted himself about forty feet away and waited. I was 

 scared that time, for how should I know when that black thing might run 

 at me or spread its wings or something. It evidently wasn't like a dog, 

 for I coaxed it to eat me, and it didn't even sniff. I stayed away nearly 

 an hour, but nothing happened. Something really had to be done, for 

 my eggs were getting cold; so I crept back. Well, to make a long story 

 short, that man didn't offer any sort of violence, but just crept a little 

 closer, and made a funny noise in the black thing every time I came back 

 to the eggs; till finally, I let him sit ten feet off and bang away all he 

 pleased. And he was pleased, too, for he smiled and smiled all the time 

 he was there, and he said, "Goodbye, little birdie," when he had to go 

 away with the black box. 



I never saw him again till the babies came. Then he came lugging 

 that old black box, and I was mad. Those fluffy darlings to be gobbled 

 up at last! I shrieked to Teddy and he came running to help. We had 

 the babies scattered and we told them to be perfectly still, and they were 

 very obedient. They look just like little dried kelp-pods, anyway, and 

 it takes a sharp eye to find them. But this man worked for an hour till 

 he had all the little innocents rounded up and deposited in his hat. Then 

 he set this hat crown down, upon the sand, and went away. Teddy and I 

 came back and ran round and round the hat till we had a path worn in 



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