b in the face with
that ugly sharp beak would have been no laughing matter; but I did not
believe myself in any danger, and quickened my steps, being now highly
curious to see how near the fellow I could get. At this he broke into a
kind of dog-trot, very comical to witness, and, if I had not previously
seen him fly a few yards, I should have supposed him disabled in the
wing. Dr. Brewer, by the way, says that this bird is "never known to
run, or even to walk briskly;" but such negative assertions are always
at the maker's risk.

He picked up his legs at last, for I pressed him closer and closer, till
there could not have been more than forty or fifty feet between us; but
even then he settled down again beside another pool, only a few rods
further on in the same meadow, and there I left him to pursue his
frog-hunt unmolested. The ludicrousness of the whole affair was enhanced
by the fact, already mentioned, that the ground was perfectly flat, and
absolutely without vegetation, except for the long rows of newly planted
cranberry vines. As to what could have influenced the bird to treat me
thus strangely, I have no means of guessing. As we say of each other's
freaks and oddities, it was _his way_, I suppose. He might have behaved
otherwise, of course, had I been armed; but of that I felt by no means
certain at the time, and my doubts were strengthened by an occurrence
which happened a month or so afterward.

I was crossing the beach at Nahant with a friend when we stole upon a
pair of golden plovers, birds that both of us were very happy to see.
The splendid old-gold spotting of their backs was plain enough; but
immature black-bellied plovers are adorned in a similar manner, and it
was necessary for us to see the rumps of our birds before we could be
sure of their identity. So, after we had scrutinized them as long as we
wished, I asked my companion to put them up while I should keep my glass
upon their backs and make certain of the color of their rumps as they
opened their wings. We were already within a very few paces of them, but
they ran before him as he advanced, and in the end he had almost to
tread on them.

The golden plover is not so unapproachable as the great blue heron, I
suppose, but from what sportsmen tell me about him I am confident that
he cannot be in the habit of allowing men to chase him along the beach
at a distance of five or six yards. And it is to be added that, in the
present instance, my compa