30 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
to feed among the shingle, sand, and smooth 
boulders. They obtain their food easily, I should 
imagine, for insect life on a river-bed is plentiful. 
The male, as we have seen, looks after the newly 
hatched nestlings, the hen continuing to incubate 
the remaining eggs. When the whole family are 
out of the shell the duties of supervision are 
shared. Male and female Stilt have in fact de- 
partments of work, duties as distinct as those of 
English servants. Thus although in the neigh- 
bourhood during the whole morning, the male did 
not seem to consider himself in any way bound 
actively to assist his wite; the chicks were in her 
nest, and whilst there were under her charge. 
It wasn’t the work he had been engaged to do. 
Directly, however, the youngsters were out on 
the river-bed they were within his sphere of 
influence. It was he who led them, fed with 
them, and when the tiny creatures grew tired, hid 
them amongst the friendly stones. As yet, how- 
ever, the parental customs of the breed con- 
tinued to be misinterpreted by me. I still believed 
the hen’s refusal to sit during the morning was 
due to some freakish distrust of the screen or 
camera. Again, therefore, in the afternoon when 
returning from lunch beneath the neighbouring 
willows, I searched for, discovered, and replaced 
the chicks on their nest. Once more the same 
line of action was followed by the hen, except 
