294 



ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 

 AND REFLECTIONS IN SHETLAND. 



EDMUND SELOIIS. 



[Covtintied from page i6o), 



October igTH.^The Heron, here, stalks along the steep 

 and sea-weed-slippery rocks, as he does along the mud and 

 reedy verge of his more familiar surroundings. I see him, 

 after a short stroll of this description, descend into the water, 

 and stand, with neck held straight and rigid, the head and 

 long beak projecting in one line, at right angles from the end 

 of it, like the spike of a pickaxe. One moment, the whole 

 implement, without any flexuous curve in it, approaches 

 nearer to the water — as a pickaxe itself would, if stood on its 

 handle and pivoted forward — retires again, again approaches, 

 and then the pick — now a spear — is, with its shaft, darted in — 

 the direction being, now, more horizontal — and returns with 

 a small fish transfixed, so it appears, upon its point- — held, at 

 least, by the very point, from whence it is gulped hastily down. 

 After this, there is a little more waiting, but, nothing resulting 

 from it, the bird becomes impatient, and resumes its advance. 

 At first he wades through the water, but soon remounts the 

 rocks, and from first one and then another that stands at some 

 height above it, he cranes and peers into the sea, thus, as it 

 would seem, purposely adding to the vantage of his height. 

 At length, having made his dispositions, he comes cautiously 

 down, and standing amidst a flux of brown seaweed, he, in a 

 moment or two, lances into it, and again secures something, 

 though still quite small. But this time, the motions are 

 different, and the neck, though never as represented in pictorial 

 fiction, is more curved, to meet new exigences of circumstance. 



When a little band of Ring Plovers are put up, they fly 

 out very gracefully, over the sea, keeping all in a cluster 

 together, the inner surface of their wings shining out, like 

 morning light, all at once, for a little, and then eclipsed in 

 brown twilight. They are beaten continually, and, slenderly 

 pointed as they are, with a graceful backward curve, this has 

 a very pretty effect. A special point, both of beauty and 

 interest, in their flight, is the way in which they all suddenly 

 turn and curve off at a tangent to the curve — for they abhor a 

 straight line — in which they have, till then, been proceeding. 

 How do they all choose, exactly the same moment, to do this ? 

 Why do they never fly against each other or float upon each 

 other's toes — or tails ? A little before alighting — over the 

 water still, but nearing the shore — they cease beating their 

 wings, and glide in on them, holding them rigidly, sometimes 

 with the same backward curve, sometimes straight out, or 



Naturalist, 



