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Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys would wander all over the neighbourhood; sometimes to the downs, or up to the camp, where they cut their initials out in the springy turf, and watched the hawks soaring, and the "peert" bird, as Harry Winburn called the gray plover, gorgeous in his wedding feathers; and so home, racing down the Manger with many a roll among the thistles, or through Uffington Wood to watch the fox cubs playing in the green rides; sometimes to Rosy Brook, to cut long whispering reeds which grew there, to make pan-pipes of; sometimes to Moor Mills, where was a piece of old forest land, with short browsed turf and tufted brambly thickets stretching under the oaks, amongst which rumour declared that a raven, last of his race, still lingered; or to the sand-hills, in vain quest of rabbits; and bird-nesting in the season, anywhere and everywhere.
He watches the ducks and plover, the deer and bear; he knows where they are, and what they are doing; and he will go far out of his way to warn them, as well as his own kind, at the approach of danger. When birds nest, or foxes den, or beasts fight in the woods, he is there to see it.
She was startled at seeing me, for she expected to get away, with Henderson L. Burns as he came back from his shooting of golden plover, all unknown to me. But we had quite a visit all by ourselves. She said quite pointedly, that somebody had been keeping her family in milk and butter and vegetables and chickens and eggs all winter, and she was doing a mighty little in repayment.
The ponds disappeared. Plover flew over with wailing cry. Buffalo birds, prairie pigeons, larks, blackbirds, sparrows, joined their voices to those of the cranes and geese and ducks, and the prairie piped and twittered and clacked and chuckled with life.
He knew it was the Denver Express, and, in spite of his resolution, he began to grow nervous. Suppose the woman should not come? The rumble grew to a roar, and the train pulled into the station. Grayson was faithful to the last, and still thundered forth the invective that delighted the soul of Plover. The train whistled and moved off again, and Harley waited in breathless anxiety.
It also sings by night, "counting the hours," the gauchos say, and where they have congregated together in tens of thousands the mighty roar of their combined voices produces an astonishingly grand effect. The largest aquatic order is that of the Limicolse snipes, plover, and their allies which has about twenty-five species.
"Not yet," he replied. "I'll try 'em one of these days." Ten days later, on a Sunday when he chanced not to have gone out with his aristocratic friend Matthew Peel- Swynnerton, he did at length open the box and take out a cigar. "Now," he observed roguishly, cutting the cigar, "we shall see, Mrs. Plover!" He often called her Mrs. Plover, for fun.
Cyril asked: "What does it matter if he is hurt?" and suggested that Mr. Critchlow would get over his damage. Constance grew more serious. The discussion threatened to be warm. Suddenly Cyril yielded. "All right, Mrs. Plover, all right! It shall be exactly as you choose," he said, in a gentle, humouring tone. He had not called her 'Mrs. Plover' for years.
Certainly not the blue heron, standing midleg deep in the water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or the low-spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal contemplation; nor the impassive kingfisher an ornithological Marius reviewing the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to and fro over the face of the marsh continually, but evidently couldn't make up his mind whether the waters had subsided, and felt low- spirited in the reflection that after all this trouble he wouldn't be able to give a definite answer.
Prairie chickens, plover and curlew, with once in a while a bittern, went hurriedly along to the eastward, and several wolves crossed our path, trotting along and paying no attention to me or the cows; but stopping from time to time and looking back as if pursued from the west. They were pursued.
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