8 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



tortuous and uncertain, that none but small ves- 

 sels of trifling tonnage can attempt a passage; 

 and even of these the number and the arrivals are 

 so few and far between, that they only arrest the 

 attention of the observer as they cautiously thread 

 their difficult way to deposit or receive a cargo of 

 coals or corn at the hamlet of Siddlesham, which 

 is seen rising, like a little Dutch village, from the 

 flat shores in the distance. 



Here, in the dead long summer days, when not 

 a breath of air has been stirring, have I frequently 

 remained for hours, stretched on the hot shingle, 

 and gazed at the osprey as he soared aloft, or 

 watched the little islands of mud at the turn of the 

 tide, as each gradually rose from the receding 

 waters, and was successively taken possession of 

 by flocks of sandpipers and ring-dotterels, after 

 various circumvolutions on the part of each de- 

 tachment, now simultaneously presenting their 

 snowy breasts to the sunshine, now suddenly turn- 

 ing their dusky backs, so that the dazzled eye 

 lost sight of them from the contrast ; while the 

 prolonged cry of the titterel,* and the melancholy 

 note of the peewit from the distant swamp, have 



* The provincial name for the whimbrel. The word 

 titterel frequently repeated by a female voice (in alt.) 

 would nearly resemble the cry of this bird. 



