The Snowy Plover 
anything I could do to prevent. He wouldn’t pay any attention to me, 
and the skirt-dance is no fun with nobody looking, so 1 gave Teddy the 
plover call, Too leep, too leep , and we went off down the lagoon and had a 
good bath. There is no use worrying, you know, about things you can’t 
help. 
By and by the man went way, way off and sat down. Only his eyes 
seemed to get bigger, or rather, he carried his eyes in a black thing that he 
put up in front of his regular eyes. But the wind was blowing, and I 
couldn’t wait around all day, so I took chances and sneaked back. When 
I got there my eggs were almost buried out ot sight in the drifting sand. 
I’ve had that happen before, of course, but I do believe that naughty man 
held sand up and let the wind blow it over quickly. Well, I showed him. 
I stooped over each egg in turn, stuck my bill down deep under the 
big end and heaved up, pulling in toward my breast. One of my eggs 
weighs a quarter as much as I do, so that’s no easy trick. Then I sat 
down and kicked the sand out from between each pair of eggs, tedder- 
fashion, and sent it skiting in a jolly shower. By the time 1 had gone the 
rounds with both operations twice, I had those buried eggs up high and 
dry and was making mugs at that man with the movable eyes. He took 
himself off after that. 
But do you know that man was back the very next day with a big 
black box! He planted himself about forty feet away and waited. I was 
scared that time, for how should I know when that black thing might run 
at me or spread its wings or something. It evidently wasn’t like a dog, 
for I coaxed it to eat me, and it didn’t even sniff. I stayed away nearly 
an hour, but nothing happened. Something really had to be done, for 
my eggs were getting cold; so I crept back. Well, to make a long story 
short, that man didn’t offer any sort of violence, but just crept a little 
closer, and made a funny noise in the black thing every time I came back 
to the eggs; till finally, I let him sit ten feet off and bang away all he 
pleased. And he was pleased, too, for he smiled and smiled all the time 
he was there, and he said, “Goodbye, little birdie,” when he had to go 
away with the black box. 
I never saw him again till the babies came. Then he came lugging 
that old black box, and I was mad. Those Huffy darlings to be gobbled 
up at last! I shrieked to Teddy and he came running to help. We had 
the babies scattered and we told them to be perfectly still, and they were 
very obedient. They look just like little dried kelp-pods, anyway, and 
it takes a sharp eye to find them. But this man worked for an hour till 
he had all the little innocents rounded up and deposited in his hat. Then 
he set this hat crown down, upon the sand, and went away. Teddy and 1 
came back and ran round and round the hat till we had a path worn in 
J 3 2 7 
