204 THE PLOUGHING 



They pour cartloads of cinders into it, and the mud 

 lips puff up luxuriously, slowly close, and compose 

 themselves over the vanished morsel, This crust 

 will carry nothing heavier than a bird ; and when the 

 rain has softened it, thousands of footprints show how 

 their owners have searched the thick ooze. 



Here the Dunlin comes with his boon companion 

 the Ringed Plover, You may pick him out on the 

 spring and early autumn passages by his vivid chest- 

 nut head, and a black breastplate somewhat 

 resembling the black undermarking of a Golden 

 Plover. For the rest, upon general inspection, he 

 exhibits the mottled brown upper, and the white 

 under, parts of so many of his allies. His long black 

 bill is slightly decurved ; and, as if he felt the lack of 

 an almost lost hind toe, he frequently lifts his wings 

 when passing over uneven ground, apparently to 

 steady himself, thereby exposing their white under- 

 sides. 



It must have been the attraction of contrast that 

 drew the Dunlin and the Ringed Plover together as 

 feeding mates ; for the difference between them is as 

 great as between the Lapwing and Starling, another 

 strange association, due doubtless to the impudence of 

 the latter. The Ringed Plover pecks daintily here 

 and there, not unmindful of the lighter graces of the 

 table while satisfying his hunger ; but the Dunlin 

 runs about with the bustling air of a Starling, tearing 

 a tangle here, thrusting in his bill there, and between 

 times beating a devil's tatoo with his long bill 

 on the mud, as if he had something of a Snipe's 

 faculty for discerning hidden treasure by touch alone. 

 He is so preoccupied as to fail to apprehend danger 



