JANUARY, 1883. 271 



rotche, whose white breast is lifted on the white breakers, 

 while a torrent of crimson flows into the waters around. 

 As we step chilled on to the beach, we half resolve to 

 burnish the glass face of our barometer so that it may 

 see better, and hang it outside to take a lesson from the 

 seafowl, not one of which, gull or sandpiper, but knew of 

 the coming tempest ! That night the wind blew a gale, 

 which continued all Tuesday, the glass in the interval 

 still rising to 30^3 only commencing to fall the next 

 night, when the gale increased to a tempest. " Never 

 prophesy unless you know," exclaims the Yankee hum- 

 orist, and the barometers in this quarter seem resolved 

 to be "cocksure" before they implicate themselves, leaving 

 all forecasts of value to the seafowl. 



We some time ago calculated the quantity of limpets 

 eaten by the oyster-catchers, and looked upon these 

 as the principal food of our seapiets. Although they 

 are constantly and actively at work on sand or mud 

 banks in front of our cottage, we accused them more 

 of driving their bills into the sand after annelids 

 than seeking other shell-fish. Our neighbour, however, 

 found quite a handful of cockles in the stomach of an 

 oyster-catcher the other day, and this led to a discussion 

 as to how they opened them, for we did not suppose that 

 they knew the trick of opening them by placing the 

 um bones of two together and giving them a dextrous 

 twist ! The next day after our discussion, our friend, on 

 returning from a stroll, made a rush for his coat pocket 

 in such a state of triumph that we anticipated the pro- 

 duction of gold-laden quartz. The production of an 

 opened cockle dispelled this illusion, and we then learned 

 that he had come upon a gull devouring it, and forced 

 the bird to drop it that he might examine it carefully. 



