644 
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS 
which the bird might have hidden. It is eloquent testimony 
of the value of her protective coloring, therefore, that we 
should almost have stepped on the bird, who had moved to a 
near-by flat rock, as we approached the place in which we had 
expected to find her. 
Far more convincing, however, was her faith in her own 
invisibility. Even the presence of a dog did not tempt her to 
flight, and when the camera was erected on its tripod within 
three feet of her body, squatting so closely to its rocky back- 
ground, her only movement was occasioned by her rapid 
breathing. 
There was other cause, however, beside the belief in her 
own inconspicuousness to hold her to the rock : one little downy 
chick nestled at her side, and, with instinctive obedience, was as 
motionless as its parent. 
So they sat while picture after picture was made from 
various points of view, and still no movement, until the parent 
was lightly touched, when, starting quickly, she spread her 
long wings and sailed out over the fields. Perhaps she was 
startled, and deserted her young on the impulse of sudden 
fear. But in a few seconds she recovered herself, and, circling, 
returned and spread herself out on the grass at my feet. Then 
followed the evolutions common to so many birds but wonder- 
ful in all. With surprising skill in mimicry, the bird fluttered 
painfully along, ever just beyond my reach, until it had led me a 
hundred feet or more from its young, and then, the feat evidently 
successful, it sailed away again, to perch first on a fence and 
later on a limb in characteristic (lengthwise) Nighthawk atti- 
tude. 
How are we to account for the development in so many 
birds of what is now a common habit? Ducks, Snipe, Grouse, 
Doves, some ground-nesting Sparrows and Warblers, and 
many other species, also feign lameness, with the object of 
drawing a supposed enemy from the vicinity of their nest or 
young. Are we to believe that each individual, who in this 
most reasonable manner opposes strategy to force, does so in- 
telligently? Or are we to believe that the habit has been ac- 
quired through the agency of natural selection, and is now 
purely instinctive ? Probably neither question can be answered 
until we know beyond question whether this mimetic or de- 
ceptive power is inherited. — By Frank M. Chapman, in Bird 
Lore. 
