THE SHORE PATROL 211 



the wind was fresh from the northeast and the Golden Plovers 

 arrived in good numbers, and were common during the 

 remaining week of my stay. At first all were adults, with dark 

 breasts, but on the fifteenth and afterwards there were more 

 and more of the pale-bellied young. They fed preferably on 

 the marshes or on any grass-land near the sea, but also were 

 often seen along the edge of the inlet, wading along its sandy 

 margins. 



Somehow, the Golden Plover appeals to me as the finest 

 of the shore-birds. It has a good name, it is a beautiful bird, 

 and is all the more attractive for the romantic interest attach- 

 ing to its wonderful migration and its fortuitous appearances 

 on our shores. No bird has more splendid powers of flight. 

 How I love to watch the varied evolutions of its swift squad- 

 rons, now high in air, now low over the flats, wheeling to the 

 stirring, wild music of mellow, whistled calls ! Then they 

 suddenly alight in the short grass, where they scatter out in 

 pursuit of grasshoppers or other insect prey, not forgetting 

 their true plover dignity as they walk sedately about or stand 

 erect, like Robins listening for the worm. 



On the eighteenth the first of the tardy host of Red-backed 

 Sandpipers — sometimes called " Frost-birds " — arrived, and 

 previously, on the fifth and sixth, I made my first acquaint- 

 ance with the Buff-breasted Sandpiper, — a flock of a dozen 

 flving along the beach and a single one feeding on the inlet 

 flats. 



Birds were now pouring in, — scoters and other sea-ducks 

 had begun to fly, jaegers were out at sea in swarms, hawks of 

 various sorts were migrating, with many Northern land-birds 

 among the spruces, — and it seemed hard to pack my belong- 

 ings and start off, amid the first early snow-squall, for tame 

 and effete civilization ! 



On Sunday evening, the night before I left, I strolled down 



