LLANDDWYN 23 



furiously down- wind on firm -set sand to head off 

 low-flying Waders, did not, having accomplished his 

 purpose, at once betake himself, without need to cast 

 any superfluous garment, to the other element. 



In his careering he has caught a day-old Oyster- 

 catcher, a toddling ball of mottled down that, when 

 put to it, holds its head high in air and runs with 

 untutored swiftness. Runners, almost from the 

 shell, are all his kind ; birds that feed by the sea 

 continually, circling out over the water when 

 disturbed, but, without attempting to settle upon it, 

 circling back again to land. Running birds are land 

 birds ; to be born runners from the shell, Oyster- 

 catchers must long have been birds of the land. 

 This day-old chick, when driven to the water's edge, 

 cried out for fear and sought escape toward the land ; 

 but when cast bodily into the sea, he sank, to rise at 

 once and, sitting the water as squarely as any duck- 

 ling, swam ashore. Why should an Oyster-catcher 

 swim ? Upon what ancestral fund of swimming 

 craft did this young Wader draw so late a draft ? 

 And, swimming instinctively, why should it have an 

 aversion, equally instinctive, from water, using 

 inherited powers only under compulsion ? 



The sun had passed well to westward ere we 

 resumed our journey, leaving the bay to Oyster- 

 catcher and Ringed-plover nesting at intervals along 

 the shingle, and much disturbed by our invasion of 

 their retired haunt. 



In proceeding, we crossed the track of Sheldrakes 

 leading from the sand hills to the water, and after- 

 wards descried well out in the bay a close line of 

 just a score of young Shelds swimming on a broad 



