224 WILD BIRDS 



trifling movements. At a hundred yards I stood 

 and watched the dunlins rise in two parties. In a 

 few seconds they were but black specks against the 

 sky, disapppearing over the harbour a mile off in the 

 form of a scrap of horizontal cirro-stratus cloud. 



They were gone for the afternoon, and it was the 

 same next day when I found a sheet of white on 

 another ridge nearer the sea. If one contrives by 

 very gentle movements to reach within about eighty 

 yards of the dozing dunlins, the dark shades of their 

 plumage, as well as the white that appears so pure 

 white in the sun are seen ; and then the flock may 

 remind one of an autumn gathering of pied wagtails 

 in repose if wagtails by day ever are in repose. 



THE METEOR'S TRACK 



Cloud and smoke at sea will often take fantastic 

 forms of curl and wreath in the calms of sunset. 

 But one evening there appeared in the sky over the 

 dunlins islet a form utterly different from any I 

 had seen before over water or land. At dusk, after 

 fiery sunset and cloudless day, I saw to the south, 

 struck across the sky, what looked like the streamer 

 of some dread comet. It seemed to spring out of the 

 sparkling belt of Orion. It began in a point or taper, 

 bent down towards the sea at an angle of 45, and 

 running into the constellation Eridanus. 



It ended in a curled tail of several ends, like the 

 hemp of the end of a thick rope untwisted. The 

 colour was reddish, and it was not till I had looked at 

 it through a pair of glasses that I could quite dissuade 



