THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD 



321 



of wing and foot, seems not to heed so much the fury of the 

 elements. Its home is on the sea, its food abundant in the 

 quieter deeps below : it is an excellent diver, and searches 

 diligently for the fat, brittle-shelled trough-shell and the 

 smaller mussels, nor are small crabs and kindred crustaceans 

 despised by them. 



Running nimbly along the moistened sands various shore 

 birds hunt for such fragmentary or minuter forms as the 

 larger birds reject. Dunlins trot in zig-zag fashion up and 

 down the wet 

 sands. Here 

 they snap up 

 small crusta- 

 ceans : — gam- 

 mams, hyperia, 

 corophium, and 

 crangon, and 

 tiny fragments 

 of other animal 

 bodies. 



Occasionally 



the purple sandpiper may be met with : preferring rocky 

 beaches and the neighbourhood of fucus-decorated piles 

 and boulders, they will search the flattened stretches of 

 sands, and, being daring, will run down a retreating 

 wave-wash, thigh deep, in order to snatch up any tempt- 

 ing morsel. One seldom sees two together, less often 

 a trio of this solitary species. Knots tamely prick about 

 among the weeds and shingle, hoping for sand-hoppers. 

 Ringed plovers in scattered companies search the drier 

 stretches above the tide-mark, and occasionally a parcel of 

 grey plovers, now clad in wintry vests of white, drop in to 

 share the findings of the smaller birds. 



11.922) 4* 



THE PURPLE SANDPIPER . . . WILL RUN DOWN A 

 RETREATING WAVE-WASH, THIGH DEEP 



