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A DIARY OF ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION MADE 

 IN ICELAND DURING JUNE AND JULY, 1912. 



By Edmund Selous. 



(Continued from p. 174.) 



Immobility must be as protective as protective coloration, 

 and perhaps more so, for that would be an unfit species whose 

 eye was deceived by coloration after it had detected motion in 

 one suited to its needs. I have spoken of the immobility of the 

 Golden Plover on its nest. To-day, for the second time, I 

 watched a Red-necked Phalarope under the same circumstances. 

 Some turves have been cut and piled up on each other, almost 

 on the very place where I sat before. I got up upon the highest 

 of these heaps — some three or four feet from the ground — which 

 made a comfortable seat. Almost from the first, my glasses 

 detected something which I first thought was, then was not, and 

 finally was — but not quite certainly — the head of the sitting 

 bird. There was a curvature which seemed quite perfect both 

 for head and neck. It was indeed, all along the outline, of the 

 grey bleached shade of a withered blade of grass, of which there 

 were many all about, but still why had it that curvature ? 

 None of the others had. Why, too, was it always motionless 

 though there was a wind — sometimes a little gust of wind — 

 when other blades round about it could be seen to move ? So 

 much for the outline, but beyond that outline, or, rather, 

 enclosed by it, I could see distinctly coloration and substance 

 which was not to be explained by any of the scant vegetation — 

 scant, at least, in kind— round about. There was a dark, 

 defined mark on the nape side of the neck, and two others, if 

 I remember, on that of the throat. There was shape too — the 

 required shape — more of it I mean — that of the throat and chin 

 with a suggestion of the beak — just beginning — the rest being 

 hidden. Still the colour of the head and neck outline so 



