ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 71 



the breeding-season, the compromise appears to have been this, 

 that it has been permitted to look conspicuous enough, whilst 

 walking about, but not in the same degree, whilst incubating, 

 since here the black parts, being undermost, are hidden, or 

 partially hidden, whilst the mottled back, though more beauti- 

 ful, is, notwithstanding, more assimilative. Partially hidden, I 

 have had to say. The case, I confess, would show better if no 

 such qualification were needed, but the particular bird which I 

 have now for some two hours been watching, and which I believe 

 to be the female, has sat all the while remarkably erect upon the 

 nest. En revanche, however, she has also sat very motionless— 

 I am hardly sure if I have seen her move once. 



All over the country now, wherever these birds are at all (and 

 they are widely distributed) one sees them and hears their 

 plaintive pipe, and the conduct of any one of them that one 

 approaches is generally in relation to the nest on which its 

 partner is sitting. For instance, as I got up to the nest which I 

 am now watching, the male of the pair was standing within a 

 few feet of it, and as I advanced he moved away at but a short 

 distance in front of me, showing an evident but yet moderate 

 and well-governed degree of anxiety. Wishing to see how things 

 would go, I followed him, and he kept for a long way at the same 

 measured distance in front of me, stopping when I did, piping, 

 as it were, conventionally, in fact, with professional adroitness, 

 leading me away from the nest — for such certainly seemed to be 

 his idea. Go where I would, I could not get rid of this bird. 

 When I had walked to a distance away from the nest which I 

 thought might certainly have satisfied him, he still kept about 

 me, coming down, sometimes here, sometimes there, but never 

 far away from me, and sometimes quite close. After some time 

 I walked diagonally to another point, from which I could better 

 watch the nest, nearer, indeed, but still at such a distance as, to 

 a being with no knowledge of binoculars, might well have 

 seemed perfectly safe. Now, for a little while, I thought he was 

 gone, but, all at once, he was close at hand again, with his eye, 

 as before, fixed professionally upon me, as though he had no 

 idea of letting me get away. In fact, he watched and senti- 

 nelled me, nor was it ever possible to attribute his actions to 

 causes irrelevant to myself — it was plain to the extremity of 



