May 



day went on, and the standing grass formed an ever- 

 diminishing island in the middle of the bare, mown 

 field, the birds found that the farmer had no sooner 

 scared them from one side as he drove down field, 

 than he was already upon them again as he drove up 

 on the other side. They continued to work silently 

 about the plot, as if in search of some fourth dimen- 

 sion into which to make their escape from the rattling 

 whirligig, which, every time it went round, cut a 

 fresh strip from their hiding-place and added it to 

 the bare expanse surrounding them. At last, when 

 they were all but exposed, and the farmer feared they 

 migftt be cut up at every turn, they got up with 

 tremendous outcry, and ran, or rather flew, the 

 gauntlet of a dozen men working between them and 

 an adjoining wheat field, scared out of their wits by 

 the clapping and holloaing of the onlookers. 



Among the numerous pipits and wagtails which 

 at this time frequented the Mersey banks and the 

 adjacent water meadows, there appeared on the 

 ist May a bird wholly distinct, but in one way 

 strangely resembling them. It was on this day that 

 I caught the piping " Wheet ! wheet ! wheet / " of 

 the common sandpiper, or summer snipe, and look- 

 ing along the river, saw the bird running to and 

 fro on the mud at the water's edge, with the same 

 erratic movements and the same exaggerated rock- 

 ing of the tail which characterized the pipits and 

 wagtails among which for the time being he found 

 himself. He is a small snipe, olive-brown above, 



