in this strange position it kept uttering a long, low, hoarse note, which, together with its whole demeanour, seemed to betoken great distress. It remained thus for some minutes before flying away, during which time I stood still, watching it closely, and when it was gone, soon found the nest, with four eggs in it, in the grass-tuft from which it had flown. Its action whilst spinning over the ground was very like that of the nightjar when put up from her young ones."
It is to be noted here that this snipe flew a very little way from the nest, and when on the ground did not travel over it to any extent, but only in a small circle just at first, after which it kept in one place. The Arctic skua (Richardson's skua, as some call it, but I hate such appropriative titles—as though a species could be any man's property!) behaves in the same kind of way, for, lying along on its breast, with its wings spread out and beating the ground, it utters plaintive little pitiful cries, keeping always in the same, or nearly the same, spot. This has, of course, the effect of drawing one's attention to the bird, and away from the eggs or young (whether it acts thus in regard to both I am not quite sure, but believe that it does), but the effect produced on one—though here, of course, as throughout, I only speak for myself—is that the bird is in great mental distress—prostrated as it were—rather than acting with any conscious "intent to deceive." The same is the case with the nightjar, whose sudden spinning about over the ground in a manner much more resembling a maimed bluebottle or cockchafer than a bird, seems to proceed from some violent nervous shock or mental disturbance. The same, too, though
