Note 67 — Chapter XXXIX · SPRING-TIME IN THE MARISMAS BIRD-LIFE IN A DRY SEASON

Pratincoles cast themselves down flat on the dry mud, fluttering as though in mortal agony—or, say, like a huge butterfly with a pin through its thorax! The device is presumably adopted in order to decoy an intruder away from their eggs or young. This year, however, the pratincoles still practised it, although they had neither eggs nor young at all. One day (May 12) a gale of wind blew some of the deceivers bodily away.