certain sedateness, almost punctiliousness, of manner, fancifully suggests to one the figure of Don Quixote de la Mancha, the Knight of the rueful countenance, with a touch or two, perhaps, thrown in of the old Baron of Bradwardine of Tullyveolan. One can lie on the ground and watch them from far off through the glasses, or, should a belt of bracken fringe the barren area, one has then an excellent opportunity of creeping up to within a short or, at least, a reasonable distance. To do this one must make a wide circuit and enter the bracken a long way off. Then having walked, or rather waded for some way towards them, at a certain point—experience will teach the safety-line—one must sink on one's hands and knees, and the rest is all creeping and wriggling, till at length, lying flat, one's face just pierces the edge of the cover and the harmless glasses are levelled at the quarry one does not wish to kill. The birds are standing in a long, straggling line, ganglion-like in form, swelling out into knots where they are grouped more thickly with thinner spaces between. As they preen themselves—twisting the neck to one or the other side so as to pass the primary quill feathers of the wings through the beak—one may be seen to stoop and lay one side of the head on the ground, the great yellow eye of the other side staring up into the sky in an uncanny sort of way. The meaning of this action I do not know. It is not to scratch the head, for the head is held quite still; and, moreover, as, like most birds, they can do this very neatly and effectively with the foot, other methods would seem to be superfluous. Again, and this is a more characteristic action, one having stood
