ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 305 



the nest, which was and is precisely in thai place. The deepen- 

 ings of colour or shade, the soft, undefined outline of throat and 

 chin, the beginning of the bill, all were gone. There was no 

 possible making out of a bird now, from the curved grass-blade 

 alone. However bird-like its curve was, clearly it was only a 

 grass-blade, " merely that and nothing more." The rest had 

 been there, had vanished, and pari passu with that evanishment 

 the actual bird was flown. So I reasoned. I could not and I 

 cannot persuade myself that the chance shape of a grass-blade, 

 simulating the not very complex outline of a bird's head and 

 neck, had made me imagine all the rest. It was not a case of 

 aroused expectation, which, moreover, I have always found fail 

 me. My theory was, and is, that there had been a chance 

 combination between bird and grass-blade, in which case — and I 

 feel pretty certain it was the case — the bird's immobility was 

 astonishing, and, now I come to think of it, so was that of the 

 grass-blade. Why it should not have moved, though there 

 was always a wind, I really cannot explain (since it did not 

 appear to be in any way sheltered, and elsewhere there was 

 movement enough), but move it did not. The bird's immobility, 

 however, was voluntary, and it is a little curious that this form 

 of protection, equally, there can be no doubt, the product of 

 natural selection with that of a dull or assimilative colouring, 

 should have aroused hardly any attention — at least in the 

 higher vertebrates —whilst the other has been so taken up that 

 no one seems to know when to put it down. Yet I cannot doubt 

 that, in the degree of its development, it is the more protective 

 of the two. There is no species so quietly coloured as not to be 

 seen when it moves, and none, probably, too bright to escape 

 observation by keeping still. 



My first watching of this Phalarope on the nest was on 

 Friday (21st). I then saw it sitting distinctly, as I came close 

 up — perhaps within six or seven paces. The day before (I 

 think) when I had marked the nest, I saw nothing of the bird, 

 so that if it had been on it, it must have walked away — not 

 flown. Eemembering this, but not before I had turned and got 

 some distance on my way back, I thought I would test it now, 

 and so walked right up to the nest, which I found empty, not 

 having seen the bird again. It is not very likely that it went off 



