166 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 



you hear a loud and shrill cry, and, turning about, see 

 a pair winging their flight up the country, their glossy 

 black and pure white plumage contrasting strongly 

 with everything around, and their long vermilion 

 beaks giving them a strange and foreign aspect, they 

 never fail to rivet your gaze. Equally attractive are 

 they when running about on some grassy meadow, 

 picking up an insect or a slug, then standing, and 

 again advancing with quick, short steps, prettily 

 tripping it among the gowans ; then emitting their 

 loud alarm-cries, and flying oft' to a more distant place, 

 or alighting on a pebbly beach. No creature but man 

 seems to molest them ; but of his advances they are 

 always suspicious, as good need they have to be. — 

 British Birds, vol. iv. p. 158. 



19. — Dunlins Feeding. 



I, on the 9th of September 1840, walked to 

 Musselburgh, where I was informed that the sandpipers 

 were very abundant ; and, having betaken myself to 

 the mouth of the Esk soon after the tide had turned, 

 was gratified by the sight of a great luunber of 

 dunlins and ring-plovers. In the first place I met 

 with two flocks reposing, the one among some thin 

 herbage, composed chiefly of Glaux rna7'itima ; the 

 other on a slightly elevated part of the sand, just above 

 water -mark. Individuals of both species were inter- 

 mingled, all lying flat on the ground, and in a crouch- 



