88 WOODLAND, MOOR, AND STREAM 



water, paddling on the ebb ; the rest have risen on 

 wing and are dipping and flapping up and down, 

 impatient for the long sea grass to show bare for them 

 to graze on. Other birds rush up for their share from 

 the shingle of the beach five miles away dunlins, 

 sanderlings, and knots. The curlews are there as 

 a matter of course ; where the lug or sandworm is 

 abundant you will find those birds in great numbers. 

 The heron has no longer the shore to himself, as he 

 had it in summer ; others share it with him, as well 

 as the food that the tide leaves. The dunlins run 

 nimbly over the surface left bare, busily pecking and 

 dibbing at something in or on the slub. If you rouse 

 a flock of them and look at the place where they were, 

 you will see thousands of little depressions left by the 

 tips of their bills. Their prey must be very small 

 minute crustaceans, probably, or the spat of some 

 mollusk. fhe sanderlings and knots keep more 

 apart. The tangle round stones finds favour with 

 them. They will mix with the dunlins at times, and 

 with curlews in close company, but not one of them 

 will get within reach of the heron. One blow and a 

 grip, a dabble in the water to wet the poor victim's 

 feathers and make them lie closer, and little Master 

 Dunlin, or any other bird of his size, goes down his 

 gullet at a gulp. Look at them following the tide, 



