122 love's MEINIE. 



as I said, essentially connected with the run- 

 ning land birds, or broadly, the Plovers ; and 

 with the Sand-runners, or (from their cry) 

 Sand-pipers, which Mr. Gould evidently asso- 

 ciates mentally with the Plovers, in his descrip- 

 tion of the plumage of the Dunlin ; while he 

 gives to them in his plates of that bird — the 

 little Stint, and common Sandpiper — most 

 subtle action with their fine feet, — thread-fine, 

 almost, in the toes ; requiring us, it seems to 

 me, to consider them as entirely land-birds, 

 however fond of the wave margins. But the 

 next real water-ouzel we come to, belongs to 

 a group with feet like little horse-chesnut 

 leaves ; each toe having its separate lobes of 

 web. Why separated, I cannot 3'et make out, 

 but the bird swims, or even dives, on occasion, 

 with dexterity and force. These lobe-footed 

 birds consist first of the Grebes, which are con- 

 nected with fresh-water ducks ; and, secondly, 

 of the Phalaropes, which are a sort of sea-gulls. 

 No bird which is not properly web-footed has 

 any business to think itself either true duck 

 or true gull ; but as, both in size and habit 

 of life, the larger grebes and phalaropes are 

 entirely aquatic and marine, I shall take out 



