166 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 



you hear a loud and shrill cry, and, turning about, see 

 a pair winging their flight up the country, their glossy 

 black and pure white plumage contrasting strongly 

 with everything around, and their long vermilion 

 beaks giving them a strange and foreign aspect, they 

 never fail to rivet your gaze. Equally attractive are 

 they when running about on some grassy meadow, 

 picking up an insect or a slug, then standing, and 

 again advancing with quick, short steps, prettily 

 tripping it among the gowans ; then emitting their 

 loud alarm-cries, and flying off to a more distant place, 

 or alighting on a pebbly beach. No creature but man 

 seems to molest them ; but of his advances they are 

 always suspicious, as good need they have to be. 

 British Birds,, vol. iv. p. 158. 



19. DUNLINS FEEDING. 



I, on the 9th of September 1840, walked to 

 Musselburgh, where I was informed that the sandpipers 

 were very abundant ; and, having betaken myself to 

 the mouth of the Esk soon after the tide had turned, 

 was gratified by the sight of a great number of 

 dunlins and ring-plovers. In the first place I met 

 with two flocks reposing, the one among some thin 

 herbage, composed chiefly of Glaux maritima; the 

 other on a slightly elevated part of the sand, just above 

 water -mark. Individuals of both species were inter- 

 mingled, all lying flat on the ground, and in a crouch- 



