IN THE SHETLANDS 22/9 
plumage. Sometimes, when excited, or about to fly, 
they will run, for a little, over the sand, holding the 
wings elevated above the back, which has a quaint yet 
graceful appearance. They keep together, generally, 
in a group or series of groups, but at other times 
stand in a long row amidst or but just beyond 
“the light sea-foam” beating from the waves, looking 
as though the sea had cast them up, like a line of 
drifted seaweed. Gulls often come down amongst 
them, and the two sit or stand, side by side, quite in- 
different to one another, each hardly conscious of the 
other’s presence—so far, at least, as one can judge. 
Besides the piping note I have mentioned, these sea- 
pies have others—‘ queep, queep!” and a kind of 
twittering trill leading up to it—which remind one 
strangely of the great plover, and suggest a common 
ancestry. 
I have confirmed to-day all that I said in Bird 
Watching (pp. 90-3) about the love-piping of these 
sea-pies. For some reason or other—rivalry, I think, 
passing into a form—two birds, that I put down as 
males, seem to like to pipe together to one who, by 
her quiescence and general deportment, I judge to be 
the female. I have seen this twice since coming here, 
once yesterday, and now again within these few hours. 
This last time it was almost as marked as in the 
instances I have described, and towards the end one 
of the piping birds showed a tendency to go down on 
his shanks, as though kneeling to his lady love. I do 
not think he quite did this, but he bent towards it. 
