CHAPTER I 



Watching Great Plovers, etc. 



If life is, as some hold it to be, a vast melancholy 

 ocean over which ships more or less sorrow-laden 

 continually pass and ply, yet there lie here and there 

 upon it isles of consolation on to which we may step 

 out and for a time forget the winds and waves. One 

 of these we may call Bird-isle — the island of watching 

 and being entertained by the habits and humours of 

 birds — and upon this one, for with the others I have 

 here nothing to do, I will straightway land, inviting 

 such as may care to, to follow me. I will speak of 

 birds only, or almost only, as I have seen them, and 

 I must hope that this plan, which is the only one I 

 have found myself able to follow, will be accepted as 

 an apology for the absence of much which, not having 

 seen but only read of, I therefore say nothing about. 

 3 



