BIRDS AND STORM 285 



take them out of the way of most of the natural 

 dangers, birds put their dependence rather upon 

 their mobility than upon the concealment they 

 could effect by keeping still. But in stormy 

 weather they keep to one place, and profit by the 

 fact that when still they vanish. 



There are two or three groups of birds, however, 

 to which nothing of this can be said to apply. 

 The gulls and the members of the wading tribe 

 which frequent the shore do not retire to roosting - 

 places in stormy weather, and some of their most 

 interesting motions can then be observed. To 

 take a familiar example from among the last, 

 the flocks of ringed plovers, popularly called sand- 

 larks, keep the shore in all weathers, and some 

 of their actions in high wind are curious and 

 interesting to watch. At such a time it is an 

 easy matter to approach a flock feeding on the 

 flat sand left by the tide to within a dozen 

 yards. When a human intruder upon their domain 

 comes within that distance of them, the flock of 

 little bullet -headed birds, as if moved by one will, 

 will turn and run down the wind with amazing 

 speed, and at the end of a dozen yards more will 

 wheel with a simultaneity and precision never 

 equalled by troops on parade. In the curious, 

 swift run, in which the legs are hardly seen, and 

 in which no motion is visible but the rapid for- 

 ward motion of the body, and still more in the 

 abrupt wheel round to the wind, with which it 

 ends, these little plovers irresistibly suggest the 

 action of certain mechanical toys. All animal 

 motions are in a sense mechanical, but I can think 



