NONSUCH 



detect the three kinds of worms which they were 

 unhoHng. The belted plover would have made 

 friends and tried to feed close to his paler cousin, 

 but the piper would have none of it and missed 

 many a toothsome worm by constant pursuit of his 

 fellow. 



On a windless day when the birds spray out more 

 along the beach, each turnstone has an attendant 

 pair or trio of sandpiper camp-followers. The least 

 are the most impudent and fearless. They fairly 

 get between the legs of the turnstones and dash in 

 at the first hint of moving weed, as the larger birds 

 brace themselves to shift it. The other sandpipers 

 hang about the outskirts of the gastronomic game 

 of rugby, but none ever learns to butt or push the 

 weed aside for himself. It is as exclusive a charac- 

 teristic of the turnstones as is their bandy gait and 

 parti-colored feathers. 



On Nonsuch we have a radio which we never use, 

 a telephone which functions only in case of vital 

 need, papers from the outside world reach us a week 

 late and no one minds. Our work is too absorbing 

 seriously to miss contact with the rest of the planet, 

 but when the last tropicbird leaves its home in the 

 cliffs, and the ultimate crippled turnstone rises from 

 the beach and sets its course out to sea. Nonsuch 

 becomes a little desolate. We cherish our seabirds 

 and we love our tourists in feathers. 



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