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They had been more successful than most of the sportsmen that one falls in with on such trips; between them they had a guillemot, two horned larks, and a brace of large plovers, of some species unknown to us, but noticeable for their bright cinnamon-colored rumps. "Why couldn't we have found those plovers, instead of that fellow?" said my companion, as we crossed the second beach.
Mebbe you're hungry now." There was no maybe in the matter, judging from the number of slices of bread and butter and hard-boiled plovers' eggs the lads consumed. Over the meal the question of the draining was discussed sympathetically. "No fish," said Dick. "No decoy," said Tom. "No plovers' eggs," said Dave. "No rabbiting," said Dick. "No eeling," said Tom. "No nothing," said Dave.
Whilst we were sitting in the dusk near our fire, two beautiful parrots attracted by it, I suppose, pitched close to us; but immediately took wing again, and flew away to the N.W. They, no doubt, thought that we were near water, but like ourselves were doomed to disappointment. During the evening also some plovers flew over us, and we heard some native dogs howling to the south-west.
The golden plovers were gone; but the green peewits were busy nesting, or rather laying eggs without nests pear-shaped eggs, small at one end, large at the other, thickly blotched and splashed with dark green, and over which the birds watched, ready to fall as if with broken wing before the intruder, and try to lure him away.
The scarlet curlew breeds in innumerable quantities in the muddy islands on the coasts of Pomauron; the egrets and crabiers in the same place. They resort to the mud-flats at ebbing water, while thousands of sandpipers and plovers, with here and there a spoonbill and flamingo, are seen amongst them. The pelicans go farther out to sea, but return at sundown to the courada trees.
"Not worth speaking of," I returned in as calm a voice as I could muster; "the birds are mostly gone. And do you shoot also, may I ask?" "It is an incorrigible habit with me," he confessed in a more reassured tone. "I have, however, not done so badly of late with the birds; I killed seventeen plovers this morning a fine lot." Here his tone changed. All his former reserve had vanished.
I mean plovers' eggs, of course; I never touch turkeys' eggs. "Alma said she was very sorry to give so much trouble. "'Oh, never mind, said the fox. 'How is your grandmother? "'She is very well, thank you, said Alma, 'but she has a bad headache. "'I am very sorry to hear it, said the fox.
And the air brought back in a flash my own little house on the grey hill-sides of Douglasdale, the cluck of hens about the doors on a hot summer morn, the crying of plovers in the windy Aprils, the smell of peatsmoke when the snow drifted over Cairntable.
So much for December, 1887. Its unexpected good behavior would seem to have made a profound impression upon me; no doubt I promised never to forget it; yet twelve months later traditionary notions had resumed their customary sway, and every pleasant morning took me by surprise. The winter of 1888-89 will long be famous in the ornithological annals of New England as the winter of killdeer plovers.
The rings round his eyes were of the colour of bistre; those orbs themselves were like the plovers' eggs whereof Lady Clavering and Blanche had each tasted; the wrinkles in his old face were furrowed in deep gashes; and a silver stubble, like an elderly morning dew was glittering on his chin, and alongside the dyed whiskers now limp and out of curl.
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