NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



other indefatigable collectors have hunted vigorously 

 but unsuccessfully in the far North for the eggs of 

 these and other migratory birds. Here, then, is a 

 quest which appeals to the rising generation of dis- 

 coverers in natural history. 



But the sands are now showing wide and clear, and 

 we resume our march. Flights of dunlin, ring- 

 plovers, and little stints pass us occasionally. Little 

 bands of the same birds are to be seen feeding greedily 

 along the edge of the tide, running daintily about the 

 wet sand, and getting up as we approach, to fly off with 

 tender, plaintive little cries. We let them all go un- 

 scathed. The little stint, by the way, is another of the 

 sandpipers which makes the astonishing migration from 

 the Arctic Circle as far below the equator as South 

 Africa. I have seen them in Cape Colony, Griqua- 

 land West, and Bechuanaland, and they are common 

 enough at times throughout the whole country. The 

 flight of the stints, as their white underparts flash to 

 the sunlight, is, in the numerous bands in which they 

 often move, very striking, when they all wheel and 

 turn together. 



Some way off along the sands are a couple of largish, 

 dark-looking birds, which at a first casual glance we 

 take for crows. No crows are these, however, as, at 

 our nearer approach, they take flight, and with out- 

 stretched necks mount high upon the air, and, far 

 out of shot, wheel seawards. They are a couple of 

 mallards, birds which I never remember before to have 

 seen feeding thus in broad daylight upon these sands. 

 They are very wild, and, having made a wide and 

 lofty sweep over the sea, they presently turn inland 

 towards some dykes and marshland in our rear. 



A broad and rather higher patch of sand away 

 beyond is just now brilliantly flecked with scores of 



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