WHERE RUNS THE TIDE. 193 



face of the river. Nor does its simple song of but 

 two notes prove merely an interruption to our up- 

 land melody. On the contrary, it is sweet enough 

 to cause us to stop and listen for its repetition. A 

 Scotchman with more prejudice than love of truth 

 has called our sand-piper a mere harsh twitterer. 

 'He may have got this impression from a book, 

 but it is evident that he never heard the " teeters," 

 as I have heard them, a dozen or more, whis- 

 tling their love-calls in the early hours of a bright 

 May morning ; he never had the bird come close 

 to his door-step and sing as it poised on stone 

 after stone of the brook that babbled by. If so, 

 he could not deny that there was music in the 

 bird's heart, and, when there, it is also on the 

 tongue. 



How very different is the solitary sand-piper ! 

 though why called so I am at a loss to conjecture. 

 It, too, comes after all traces of winter are obliter- 

 ated, but it does not tarry on the river-shore. It is 

 especially fond of pools of rain-water in newly 

 ploughed fields, and I have known it to stay about 

 these until all the water had disappeared, when it 

 would move to a grassy field through which ran a 

 little brook. Here also the bird is happy, judging 

 from its actions, though it utters no call or unpreten- 

 tious song when undisturbed, or, if so, in so low and 

 indistinct a tone as to have escaped me. Open 

 glades surrounded by dense woods also attract it, 

 and its flight-power is often beautifully exhibited in 

 its upward, twisting progress between tall trees ; and 

 i n 17 



