40 EYES AND NO EYES 
network of creeping roots. This, with sea holly, sea 
thistles, sand convolvuli, and a few tufts of blite, is all 
the vegetation that grows here. 
Pools of water left in some hollows by the last 
storm glitter in the sun ; so clear is this very salt 
water that a pin could be seen at the bottom of the 
deepest pool. If you turn your eyes inland there are 
the rabbit links, and as we are in the hollows that is all 
we can see in one direction. Looking seawards we 
see a vast flat of sand, for the tide is out. A solitary 
gull flaps overhead, the only form of life that shows 
itself. It has a beauty, although a weird one, this great 
sand-flat with the dunes as a border to it ; but I should 
not care to spend a day here alone. Others have 
visited the place and made the same remark, for the 
strange shapes into which the water had formed the 
sand hills, some of them fallen, and others ready to 
fall, used to give me the impression that a small 
part of our island had been utterly wrecked. 
The ringed dotterels nest here ; as we tramp over 
the shingle two rise right in front of us and settle on a 
sandy knoll near ; we can just make them out, and 
that is all. Then they pitch on some beach a few yards 
away, and we do not see them again ; all our creeping, 
hiding, and waiting will not benefit us one bit. Still 
we do not like to be beaten if we can help it, and we 
