86 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



may be. When the birds arrive they are in full 

 breeding plumage, for the Sandpiper moults before 

 coming to us, and it moults again after it has left 

 England. It nests within a couple of miles from 

 where I live, in Surrey, along the river-banks, stone- 

 littered, covered with ferns and grasses to the very 

 edge of the water, that runs in a most wayward 

 fashion ; here a narrow throat, running through 

 some considerable wide beds of pebbles, shoots into 

 a deep wide pool. From the pool the water ripples 

 merrily over a shallow a few inches in depth ; then 

 for a space there is a run of fairly deep water, and 

 after that a long run of shallows. 



And here the Sandpiper is at home. He runs, 

 flits up and down, now here now there, piping ; now 

 on some bough or stick, or bobbing along the margin 

 of the water. A creature full of happy vitality, like 

 the Ring Dotterel, the bird has the look of innocence 

 about it. As his food consists of insects in mature 

 and immature form, the sides of the streams provide 

 food for it in abundance. The young are most 

 nimble little creatures, running about directly they 

 are hatched out ; the down that covers them is 

 greyish-brown above, with a brownish-black band 

 down the back, the lower parts white. When they 

 scurry out of their slight nest, as your footsteps go 

 crunch crunch on the pebbles when you near them, 

 you would walk through them without seeing one, if 

 they would but keep still. But this they are not 

 inclined to do, for their parents are anxious about 

 them. Some little mites shoot over the pebbles 



