Identifier: wildnaturesways00kear (find matches)
Title: Wild nature's ways
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Kearton, Richard, 1862-1928
Subjects: Birds Insects Natural history
Publisher: London, Paris, New York Melbourne, Cassell and company, limited
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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blandishments, she crept through into the open,and, depressing her tail and elevating her breast,invited them to come under her by all sorts ofaffectionate signs and sounds. As soon as shehad succeeded in getting thom beneath hersheltering i)lumage she sat witli the ))ro\-erbialboldness of brass, and allowed me to photographher over and over again. My surprise had been great when the femalecame along so readily under discouraging cir-cumstances, but it was still greater when themale bird boldly walked up with a supply offood, the precise nature of which I could notvery well niake out, owing to the accommodatinglength of his bill and the restricted character ofmy peep-hole of observation. As soon as he haddivided his dietary treat between the chicksunder his mates approving supervision, he tookcharge of one, and she the other, and they satfor ten minutes side by side. Darby and Joanfashion, looking a veritable picture of matri-monial felicity. This action on the part of tlie male snipe
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ii8 UIIJ) NATURES WAYS. proved conclu-sively that thebirds had suf-fered some loss,and that theyonly had twoinstead of fourchic ks—theusual numberreared by thespecies. The red-necked phala-rope is one ofour rarest,tamest, andmost elegantsummer visit-ors. It stillbreeds—or, to put it more accurately, attempts todo so—in one or two old haunts in the Hebrides,and elsewhere. I have spent a good deal of well-repaid timein studying its engaging and confidential ways,and can unhesitatingly assert that there is nospecies capable of affording the student of birdhabits more unalloyed pleasure. Last summer Iwaded knee-deep in the silting-up bay of a lochfor seven hours on end, studying and photo-

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