204 BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



they run, and this is all-sufficient merit. "Peeps" 

 and plovers ! There is music in the very names. 



Through the thick, steamy air above the river we 

 catch the flashing of white light that comes and goes, 

 now near, now far ; and then, when we seem to 

 have lost it altogether, it again breaks suddenly upon 

 us, and a flock of wee, winsome birds, moving with 

 the precision of an army, alights upon the sand. 

 Instantly the birds break ranks and each whistles its 

 gladness to be free. They are piping plovers, and 

 never have birds piped their happiness more plainly. 

 They seem to be forever on the run when not on the 

 wing, and the abruptness with which they can turn a 

 corner is realized when we follow the course of their 

 footprints. No matter how rapidly they may be 

 going, they detect the slightest movements of grains 

 of sand, and knowing that something good to eat is 

 beneath, they probe for and swallow the morsels, 

 large or small, while still running, apparently at 

 random. They flush hundreds of spotted tiger- 

 beetles that go whizzing off in a direct course, and I 

 have often wondered if the plovers overtook them. 

 If so, their speed as pedestrians is wonderful ; and 

 when their throats are clear they whistle. This con- 

 sists of one or two clear notes with many variations, 

 yet all readily ascribable to the same bird, whether 

 one sees it or not. It is distinctly a watery, river-side 

 sound that is wholly unlike the song of any inland 

 bird, that is, we have so long associated it with the 

 sea-coast and the wilder reaches of our river-shores 

 that it has grown to be as familiar as the breaking of 



