BIRD LIFE, ETC. 1G5 



tlie mail, calling himself an ornithologist, who, quietly 

 strolling along the bright sandy beach just left bare 

 by the retiring tide, and aroused from his pleasing 

 reveries by the mellow whistle of the ring-plover, 

 would not gaze with delight on the pleasant little 

 thing that speeds away before him with twinkling 

 feet, now stops, pipes its clear cry, runs, spreads its 

 beautiful wings, glides close over the sand, and alights 

 on some not distant tuft. What are primaries and 

 secondaries, ccecums and duodenums, types and 

 analogies, squares or circles, to him who thus watches 

 the living bird ? There is the broad blue sea, on that 

 hand the green pasture, under foot and around the 

 pure sand, above the sunny sky. Frown not upon 

 the cheerfulness of Nature ; shout aloud, run, leap, 

 make the sand lark thy playmate. Why mayest thou 

 not be drunk with draughts of pure ether ? Are the 

 gambols of a merry naturalist less innocent than the 

 mad freaks, the bowlings, the ravings of sapient men 

 assembled to deliberate about corn-laws, or party 

 zealots upholding their creed by palpably demonstrat- 

 ing their total want of charity ? — British Birds, vol. iv. 

 p. 119. 



18.— The Sea-Pie. 



Should one consider the sea-pie the most beautiful 

 of our native birds, I should not much censure his 

 taste. When by the silver Dee, gliding, rapidly along, 

 amidst corn-fields, pastures, and fragrant birch-woods, 



