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CHAPTER XXVI 
PIED PIPERS 
I HAVE just seen a sea-pie several times pull and 
tweak with his bill at the seaweed, apparently, till 
he secured something that had a white appearance. 
Holding this between the extreme tip of his man- 
dibles, he each time retired up the rock with it, placed 
it, as it seemed to me, amidst some seaweed, and then 
ate it. This was looking down upon a great stack of 
rock at some distance, so that it was impossible to be 
certain in regard to such minutie. It seemed to me, 
as it has seemed before, that he had pulled, not hit, 
some small limpet or other shell-fish from off the sea- 
weed, and then wedged it amidst other seaweed higher 
up so as to be able to pick out the inside more easily. 
Possibly, however, he merely laid it down without 
wedging it, but 1 cannot tell, and it is very difficult 
to get close enough to see just what these birds 
really do when they feed. On the grass, which they 
probe like starlings, one can get a pretty good sight 
of their actions, but not on the seashore. One thing 
I cannot help noticing, that whereas limpets are all 
about on the rocks and need no looking for, they walk 
about as if they were looking for something, and they 
leave the bare rock that is all stuck over with them 
for the parts that are covered with seaweed, and at 
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