THE MARITIME DISTRICT 245 



The peewit, too, compared with man, must have a 

 remarkable heart, and brain, and nerves, to do such 

 things purely for the fun of it. Here, sitting on a 

 hill side, I watched a male bird, amusing himself in 

 the air while his mate Avas on the nest, rise up and 

 repeat the action of pretending to go mad and hurl 

 himself down to destruction over fifty times without 

 resting. Then he alighted, and I began to imagine 

 what his sensations must be: his brain, I thought, 

 must seem to him to have got away somehow from 

 his body and to be rushing madly this way and that 

 through the air. Meantime the bird was standing 

 placidly regarding his mate ; then he nodded his head 

 once or twice to her, and in a twinkling was off, high 

 up, and at his capers once more. 



In autumn and winter, when a large number of 

 peewits are congregated, their wing-exercises are mostly 

 of another kind. Each bird is then, like the starling, 

 or linnet, or dunlin, in its flock, one of a company ; 

 and we see and note not individuals but an entire 

 crowd, or army, moved by one mind or impulse. The 

 birds often spend many hours of the day in the air, 

 travelling up and down stream, often changing their 

 formation; now seen as a flock, a mass, extending 

 wings on either side, until they present a front of 

 several hundred feet in length, then closing again and 

 changing their disposition they are seen as a long 

 column or winding stream of birds. The smoothness 

 and discipline with which these evolutions are con- 



