WHERE RUNS THE TIDE. 189 



pressed by the moccasin of the Leriape, a hunter as 

 fierce as the wildest creature that ever roamed the 

 river-valley. These pretty sand-pipers teetering 

 along shore, singing blithely in their simple way, are 

 so completely a part of all that is left of nature, un- 

 changed and unchangeable, that he who loves an 

 outing misses much if he fails, as the seasons roll by, 

 to see and hear them. 



Above the roar of the March winds, and in spite 

 of a penetrating cold, I seldom fail to hear each 

 returning year the clear, shrill call of the killdeer 

 plover ; and when that fife-like kill-dee, kill-dee 

 sounds in the gusty air, I am sure that the first snipe 

 of the season are cowering in the sheltered pools of 

 the lower meadows. Very cautiously I draw near to 

 the familiar "likely places," and stop suddenly as I 

 hear the well-known "scaip" and see the bird twist 

 and dart away, perhaps only for a few yards ; more 

 likely on and on, upward and still upward until a 

 mere speck in the sky, then gone, then reappearing, 

 and at last, after a second tarrying in mid-air, it 

 dives headlong like a cannon-shot to the earth, and, 

 turning instantly, alights daintily on its feet and 

 probes the soft mud as unconcernedly as if such a 

 brute as man had never been evolved. You may 

 not see more than one or two these early March 

 mornings, but later in the month and in April they 

 are more abundant ; and while you may pass many 

 by that run from you and skulk in the long grass, 

 others perhaps fifty or more will get up before 

 you and hurry away, not one of them making the 



