ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA. 49 
would be a prettier and apter name), were 
also given to flying along the breakers, but 
in a manner very different from the pelicans’ ; 
as different, | may say, as the birds them- 
selves. They, too, moved steadily onward, 
north or south as the case might be, but fed 
as they went, dropping into the shallow wa- 
ter between the incoming waves, and rising 
again to escape the next breaker. The ac- 
tion was characteristic and graceful, though 
often somewhat nervous and hurried. I no- 
ticed that the birds commonly went by twos, 
but that may have been nothing more than 
a coincidence. beside these small surf gulls, 
never at all numerous, I usually saw a few 
terns, and now and then one or two rather 
large gulls, which, as well as I could make 
out, must have been the ring-billed. It was 
a strange beach, I thought, where fish-hawks 
invariably outnumbered both gulls and terns. 
Of beach birds, properly so called, I saw 
none but sanderlings. They were no novelty, 
but I always stopped to look at them; busy 
as ants, running in a body down the beach 
after a receding wave, and the next moment 
scampering back again with all speed before 
an incoming one. They tolerated no near 
