THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 
777 
though scarcely able to make use of her limbs,—as if lame, 
in fact,—squats for a moment or two as though paralysed, 
and then hops and flutters along a few steps further, with 
the greatest apparent difficulty. There is no sign to be seen 
of the tiny family, for after the first three or four days of 
their existence they have already become adepts in the art 
of concealment, and in this they are so well aided by the 
colour of their downy plumage, which resembles the 
earth itself, being stippled with golden yellow and black 
spots running together into three or four stripes, that the 
sharpest eye has much trouble in discovering the little 
creatures. The older they get the more they learn of 
the art of making themselves invisible : they creep under 
heather and other plants, or even stones, and crouch in 
small hollows, where they are generally safe, for the 
mother, and when necessary the father, undertakes to 
lure the enemy from their neighbourhood. I was greatly 
amused one day at seeing two Lapps, who were guiding 
me across the morass to their home, run with the 
greatest glee after a hen Plover, who kept tumbling and 
fluttering before them, using every posture and stratagem 
of which she was capable. I let them follow the pretended 
lame one some two or three hundred paces, and then saw 
her, to my great joy, suddenly rise, and with rapid and 
certain flight return to her young ones. These I had in 
the meanwhile succeeded in capturing, and held them in 
my hands. What dire lamentation and woe! How 
utterly miserable the poor creature appeared! She 
alighted within three yards of me, limped, tumbled 
about, fairly crawled on the ground in front of me, flew 
in narrow circles around my head, returning again and 
again. I now let one of the young ones go, and it 
immediately ran to its mother, she receiving it, like an 
