276 WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 



plainly what they were, rare birds so-called, who 

 have found out fresh haunts where they know they 

 are safe. 



The little stint, or he might be called a dwarf 

 sandpiper, a delicate creature, six inches in length, 

 is a feathered wonder. After breeding in Siberia, 

 these little mites dash away to Africa and India; 

 they also visit our own shores in considerable num- 

 bers. They look like small ox-birds, dunlins. One 

 writer who has seen as much, or I may say more, of 

 rough weather, watching the arrival and departure 

 of wanderers, than generally falls to the lot of one 

 observer, has called them " flighters," and a very 

 appropriate term it is. 



Beside me, as I write, are the wings of the 

 curlew, snipe, sanderling, and the common gull. 

 The first three show at a glance that they were 

 formed for long continuous flight. Their journey, 

 we know, is broken like that of other wanderers, 

 but they go a vast distance before they break it. 

 The wings of the gull are after a different fashion, 

 being formed to enable the bird to beat to and 

 fro, now here and now there, and to tack about. 

 The divers proper, sprat - loons or sprat - divers, 



