260 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



much interested in watching the Einged Plovers on the Girvan 

 shore feeding on sandhoppers. The numbers of these brisk little 

 creatures living in the dry sand, and keeping up an animated 

 dance for hours along some miles of the beach between Girvan and 

 Turnberry must have been immense the line of high-water mark 

 appearing as if covered with a dense smoke. On walking, indeed, 

 into the midst of these countless myriads of jumping crustaceans, 

 the noise is like that of a pelting hail shower. Here the little 

 Plovers soon finish their evening meal, and it is extremely amusing 

 to see them catching their restless prey, and swallowing them 

 hurriedly as they touch the ground. At other times of the day, 

 when there is not a sandhopper to be seen, I have lain concealed 

 behind a rock and noticed the birds running up to a stranded shell 

 of a sea-urchin, which they knew to be full of them, and, by 

 tapping it, warning out the occupants, who jumped through the 

 hole on the top in the most comical state of alarm, scampering 

 sideways and zig-zag, making the hollow shell clatter as the last 

 of them cleared the premises. The bodies of crabs are appropriated 

 in the same way by the sandhoppers, the little cannibals revelling 

 on the remains of a big brother crustacean with as much relish as 

 if it were a stranded cod-fish. 



I recollect meeting with a beautiful male of this species one clear 

 morning about day-break on the Dunbar shore under very peculiar 

 circumstances. The frost was intense, and had frozen many of the 

 salt-water pools on the beach. By the side of one of these I saw 

 a fluttering object, on n earing which I found to my surprise a 

 ringed dotterel with its foot in a hair noose attached to three 

 pieces of string united at the two ends by bits of wood a trap 

 such as boys in country places use for catching small birds. 

 The little Plover had been in some field at a distance and had 

 become entangled; but, being stronger than the usual kind of 

 juvenile game, had drawn out the pegs by which the gin was 

 fastened and carried off the entire device. More at home on his 

 native strand, he had sat down to rest himself, when part of the 

 trap which was in the water had become frozen, and held the poor 

 bird a prisoner. I was glad to release him after thawing his 

 little frozen legs for half-an-hour in my pocket. 



The variation in the size of this species has been a source of 

 much perplexity to me. In the spring time, I have shot many 

 specimens so much smaller than the Ringed Plover which breeds 



