WHERE RUNS THE TIDE. 205 



the waves upon the beach : the spirit, as it were, of 

 the plover's haunts expressed in music. Nuttall has 

 attempted to describe this bird's most marked cries 

 as pee-voo pai-voo, but no words can give an ade- 

 quate idea of the strange, almost sad, faint echo that 

 remains with us when a number of these birds, dash- 

 ing away in fright, give utterance to their forebodings. 

 It is as wild, as lonely, as unearthly as the wailing of 

 the wind through the rigging of a storm-tossed ship. 

 And yet, in this river-valley, sweeter music is seldom 

 heard ; music to which we more willingly listen or 

 more sincerely regret when the last flock of the 

 season passes southward for the winter. 



The plovers usually find that the island is not a 

 forsaken feeding-ground when they come here from 

 up or down the river. There is generally some 

 wading bird or other ahead of them, a sanderling, 

 it may be, or half a dozen of them, or a killdeer, 

 and often a great flock of little sand-pipers, or 

 " peeps" as they are frequently called. The sander- 

 lings are never numerous, and usually accompany 

 flocks of other birds, but, like an occasional phala- 

 rope swimming off shore, a much rarer bird, it 

 is sometimes alone. I well remember the last time 

 I saw these birds. It was on a cool, windy Septem- 

 ber morning, with a dash of frost in the air. The 

 sparkle of the river was too bright for one to look 

 directly at it, and I shaded my eyes as I walked 

 down the west shore of the island. Suddenly I 

 heard the notes of some beach birds, and, looking 

 up, saw half a dozen of them coming towards me. 



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