Then out came a head and neck, and then a sticky morsel of a mottled brown body, which almost at once got its legs out of the shell, and began to struggle out of the nest. Was ever such a thing known before? The old birds knew not whether to laugh or cry, but they hustled him back into the nest in double quick time, and made him lie down till the sun and air should have dried him up a little. Hard work the mother had of it for the next day or two to keep that little adventurer under her wing while the other eggs were being hatched. When he was hungry he would lie quiet under her wing; but no sooner had his father come with food for him than he would utter his little pipe and struggle up for another peep into the wide world. Terrible stories his mother told him of infant Sandpipers who had come to untimely ends from disobeying their parents. One, she told him, had made off by himself one day while his mother was attending to his brothers and sisters, and before he had gone many yards along the pleasant green sward, a long red creature with horrible teeth and a tuft to his tail, had come creeping, creeping, through the grass, and suddenly jumped upon him. His mother heard his cries, and flew piping loudly to the spot; but it was too late, and she had to watch the cruel stoat bite off his head and suck his blood. Another made off towards the water and was crushed under foot by an angler who was backing from the river to land a fish, and never even knew what he had done. Another fell into a deep hole at nightfall and could not get out again, and was found starved and dead when morning came. After each of these stories the little bird shuddered and crouched under his mother’s wing again: but the mastering desire to see the world always came back upon him, and great was the relief of the parents when the other eggs were hatched and education could begin. Then the nest was soon abandoned, and the little creatures trotted about with their mother; for they are not like the ugly nestlings that lie helpless and featherless in their nests for days and days, as human babies lie in their cradles for months. Life, and manners, and strength, and beauty, come almost at once on the young Sandpipers, as on the young pheasants and partridges and chickens. And their education is very easy, for they seem to know a good deal already about the things of the world into which they have only just begun to peep.