MOURNFUL ASSOCIATIONS. 
99 
circuit, and comes up in your rear, but remains motionless 
until you pass on. In its attempts to decoy persons from 
its nest, I have sometimes seen it fly off at once a distance 
of one himdred yards or more, spread out its wings and 
tail, and tremble as if in a fit of epilepsy.' So instinct 
teaches the birds to provide for the safety of their young. 
Holy Nature, thou dost ever 
Watchful guard thy helpless brood, 
Taught by thee the wild-winged Plover 
Brings its young their evening food. 
We know not to which of the foregoing species of the 
Plover genus Graham refers in the following lines from his 
* Birds of Scotland ; ' they make that denizen of the wilder- 
ness a bird of mournful associations : — 
While thus the Heathfovd covey day by day 
Is lessened, till, perhaps, one drooping bird 
Survives — the Plover, safe, her airy screams 
Circling repeats, then to a distance flies. 
And, querulous, still returns, importunate ; 
Yet still escapes, unworthy of an aim. 
Amid the marsh's rushy skirts, her nest 
Is slightly strewn ; four eggs of olive hue 
Spotted with black, she broods upon : her young, 
Soon as discumbered of the fragile shell, 
Eun lively round their dam. Slie, if a dog 
Or man intrude upon her bleak domains, 
Skims, clamouring loud, close at their feet, with wing 
Stooping, as if impeded by a wound ; 
Meantime her young, among the rush-roots, lurk 
Secure. Ill-omened bird ! oft in the times 
When monarchs owned no sceptre but the sword, 
Far on the heathy waste that stretches wide 
From Avondale to Loudon's high-coned hill, 
Thou, hurrying on the panting fugitive, 
Through dreary moss and moor, hath screaming led 
The keen pursuer's eye : oft hast thou hung. 
Like a death flag, above the assembled throng 
Whose lips hymned praise, their right hands at their hilts; 
Who in defence of conscience, freedom, law, 
Looked stern with unaverted eyes on death 
In every form of horror. Bird of woe ! 
Even to the tomb thy victims, by thy wing, 
Were haunted ; o'er the bier thy direful cry 
02 
