SOUTHWARD HO! 145 
swering him. Their whistle appears to us, at 
any rate, to be just the same as the green- 
shank’s, except that it is not always repeated 
three times, as his is. 
Here they come, a flock of about twenty, 
beating along with their erratic, wavering 
flight, which is so deceiving to the gunner. 
They, too, are mud birds and great travellers ; 
but they were probably bred in Britain, whereas 
it is ten to one if the greenshank first saw light 
nearer than Arctic Europe. These early red- 
shanks will pass on south, I fancy, with the 
rest, but many that come later will stay their 
departure till nearly Christmas. 
You notice how they turn and swoop and 
dive in the air at our retriever over yonder. 
They nearly always do that to a dog in the 
early part of the season, when they have not 
been shot at enough to learn wisdom. You 
notice, too, their peculiar screaming note as 
they do so. Apparently their intention is to 
mob him, though why I cannot say. 
We know no other bird who is cursed with 
this peculiar habit, except, perhaps, the big, 
sickle-billed curlew to a lesser extent. 
See that little winking splash, as it were, 
of white paper on the old pebbly road that 
leads round to yonder ruined oyster-sheds. 
That is the white rump of a migrating wheat- 
