ON THE BEACH AT DAYTON A. 49 



would be a prettier and apter name), were 

 also given to flying along the breakers, but 

 in a manner very different from the pelicans' ; 

 as different, I may say, as the birds them- 

 selves. They, too, moved steadily onward, 

 north or south as the case might be, but fed 

 as they went, dropping into the shallow wa- 

 ter between the incoming waves, and rising 

 again to escape the next breaker. The ac- 

 tion was characteristic and graceful, though 

 often somewhat nervous and hurried. I no- 

 ticed that the birds commonly went by twos, 

 but that may have been nothing more than 

 a coincidence. Beside these small surf gulls, 

 never at all numerous, I usually saw a few 

 terns, and now and then one or two rather 

 large gulls, which, as well as I oould make 

 out, must have been the ring-billed. It was 

 a strange beach, I thought, where fish-hawks 

 invariably outnumbered both gulls and terns. 

 Of beach birds, properly so called, I saw 

 none but sanderlings. They were no novelty, 

 but I always stopped to look at them ; busy 

 as ants, running in a body down the beach 

 after a receding wave, and the next moment 

 scampering back again with all speed before 

 an incoming one. They tolerated no near 



