THE SANDPIPER 279 



bree " : it is rarely peat-coloured or muddy, but is won- 

 derfully clear even when the river is in spate. Before the 

 Sandpipers came no sound was heard on the river here 

 save the whistle of a passing Oyster- Catcher or the call 

 of a Golden Plover, but now there is music everywhere, 

 for not one pair only, but numbers of Sandpipers, flit 

 backward and forward over the rushing water. They 

 move, it seems, only the fraction of an inch above the 

 stream with a flight that is grace personified. They cannot 

 thrust their wings downward in order to obtain their 

 driving force — if they did so they would be immersed in 

 the water — so they hold them V-shape above the head, 

 and the wing-beat is only half completed. This V-shape 

 formation is especially apparent just before the birds 

 alight on some rounded stone projecting above the 

 water's surface. One April day I went down to the 

 nesting site of the Sandpipers after a time of rain and 

 wintry weather. The morning sun fell on the birches, 

 turning their half-formed leaves the colour of silver, and 

 the trees gave unstintedly of their aroma, so that the air 

 was heavy and perfume-laden. The sky this morning 

 was of an extraordinary clearness, and every snowfield 

 on the higher hills was distinct. The Sandpipers were 

 demonstrative, and constantly crossed and recrossed the 

 river, toying and playing with each other. When they 

 alighted, they repeatedly wagged their tails up and down 

 in the manner so characteristic to them ; but they were 

 restless, and it was not long before they again started out, 

 full of the joy of life and of springtide. Gradually black 

 clouds spread across the sky, and soon a tropical down- 

 pour of rain and hail ruffled the surface of the water. 

 The Sandpipers, their ardour considerably damped, stood 

 about disconsolately, while a Stock Dove, which I had 

 disturbed from brooding her two callow young in a rabbit 

 iDurrow at the top of a sandbank, flew anxiously round, 



