930 



THE NATURE BOOK 



strong to permit of the rapid exposure 

 which would have been necessary, so, 

 transferring the fledgehngs to a spray of 

 honeysuckle, I arranged the bramble in 

 such a way as to compel their parents to 

 alight. It now occurred to one of the 

 trio that he was wanted elsewhere, and, 

 stretching his feeble wings in a venture- 

 some flight, he paid the penalty of his 

 rashness by falling into the stream. I 

 was not aware that the old birds were in 

 the neighbourhood at that moment ; but 

 nothing connected with the young seemed 

 to escape their watchful eyes, and im- 

 mediately they fluttered helplessly around, 

 uttering cries of distress and alarm. It 

 was the work of a moment to effect a 

 rescue and replace the wanderer on the 

 branch with his companions, but the in- 

 cident had a lasting effect on the behaviour 

 of the parent birds. From that moment 

 they seemed to have absolutely no fear, 

 and fed their young in perfect unconcern 

 within four or five feet of me as I stood by 

 my camera and obtained a series of pic- 

 tures. The grace and charm of their 

 movements were w^onderful. No effort 

 seemed to be needed as they circled around 

 the tiniest twig, and the swing and balance 

 of the tail imparted a finish to their gym- 

 nastic feats which is lacking in the other 



Tits. One is conscious of the extra- 

 ordinary strength of the leg muscles whilst 

 watching the Blue Tit or any of its rela- 

 tives, but the Long-tailed Tit leaves only 

 the impression of graceful ease, conceal- 

 ing his art with the masterly skill of the 

 true artist. 



There was no apparent method in the 

 feeding of the trio, and the behaviour of 

 the old birds was an interesting comment 

 on the shortness of bird memory. Even 

 wdth the three young ones arranged in a 

 row, they seemed to have no idea which 

 they had fed last, and popped the food 

 into the beak which yawned the widest. 

 Once indeed — the only occasion on which 

 I have ever seen it happen — both birds 

 forced caterpillars down the throat of one 

 young one at the same time and, con- 

 trary to one's usual experience, my 

 camera happened to be ready. 



At last the fledgelings grew tired of 

 their inactivity, and fluttering off into 

 the undergrowth, they made their baby 

 attempts to imitate the movements of 

 their parents ; and apt pupils indeed they 

 proved, for on the next day they had gone 

 forth into the world beyond their penin- 

 sula, and soon flitted in company through 

 the woods, playing a kind of follow-my- 

 leader — the traditional game of the species. 

 A. J. R. Roberts. 



SAND-DUNES 



By F. MARTIN DUNCAN, F.K.P.S. 



With Illustrations by the Author 



SHOULD we explore the whole of the 

 coasts of Great Britain, one of the 

 features that would most quickly 

 and surely attract our attention would 

 be the almost universal presence of 

 sand, even where only a narrow strip 

 of shore is left to view at low tide. In 

 the course of our explorations, we should 

 also find that wide expanses of sand 

 flank the shores for miles along many 

 parts of the coast, frequently on the land 

 side forming into a belt of low hills or 



dunes, which in some situations rise to 

 over one hundred feet in height. 



If we scrape u]) a handful of sand froni 

 the shore and examine it, we shall find 

 that it consists mainly of quartz grains, 

 that are singularly uniform in size. 

 " Where has it all come from ? How has 

 it been formed ? " are questions that 

 rise naturally in the mind, as we stand 

 upon a wide expanse of sandy shore. The 

 second is by far the easier question to 

 answer, for the shore is the grindstone^ 



