SAND DUNES AND SALT MARSHES 



incline or the sand is soft, and then only a 

 dot shows. In an ordinary walk the distance 

 between the foot-marks is seven or eight 

 inches, but when running the bird sometimes 

 strides twenty-two inches. 



I once watched a oald eagle perched on a 

 dune overlooking the sea, and after he had 

 flown away the markings of his tail and wings, 

 as well as of his feet, were plainly to be seen 

 where he had stood in the sand. 



Prior to 1904, the tracks of piping plover 

 might occasionally be found in the spring 

 spread thickly about the spot where their eggs 

 were laid in slight depressions in the sand of 

 the dunes, but now these birds no longer breed 

 there.^ 



In the latter part of the summer, tree swal- 

 lows alight among the dunes and leave tracks 

 of their brief walks made with short steps, 

 bordered here and there by marks of unman- 

 ageably long wings, and punctuated with 

 an occasional dropping containing bayberry 

 seeds. Footprints of many birds are always 

 to be found in the sands, but when the winter 

 birds come in great flocks, — the snow bun- 

 tings, horned larks and Lapland longspurs, all 

 walkers, — then indeed is the sand well in- 



1 With better protection, the piping plover has returned to breed 

 in the dunes. 



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