36 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



upon the water. Flight therefore is the supreme expres- 

 sion of the waders, the gathered up form of their restless 

 movements on land, as a collocation of phrases, seeking 

 a true outlet for the increasing emotion that urges them, 

 finally runs into a metrical design. 



Dunlin are the most striking of all the waders to 

 watch in the air, for they move with that single and 

 unanimous consciousness which, though it is confined 

 to but a few land species — starlings, wood-pigeons 

 (rarely), daws (in play), and skylarks (occasionally in 

 the winter) — seems to endow them, and perhaps does, 

 with a sense, a faculty unknown to us. In assuming 

 that animals possess only the rudiments of our capaci- 

 ties, we are inclined to overlook the fact that they may 

 possess developed ones of which we have only the fag-ends. 



The flight of a cloud of dunlin is more rapid than 

 that of starlings, and they appear to confine themselves 

 more strictly to a limited area. When they fly thus, 

 as though a definite space for manoeuvres were pegged 

 out for them, their dancing patterns in the air, brilliant 

 turns and dashes, and the streaks of silver appearing 

 simultaneously when they expose their white under- 

 parts, make the spectacle more beautiful than anything 

 that starlings can give us. Finally, they will ravel out 

 into a single line, and, with a lovely crescentic sweep, 

 come to rest. But all the waders fly more or less in a 

 band, and make a unified, perfect lyric of it. Many of 

 them keep only a few inches above the ground, and 

 their numerous curves and oscillations are performed 

 with extraordinary dexterity on their sharply turned 

 and pointed wings. 



The redshank, too, has an individual action of the 

 utmost beauty, throwing up the wings into an arch 

 and displaying the white undersides just before alighting. 

 But the ringed plover, always going just one better, 

 repeats this action before taking flight, as well as before 

 settling. It is curious to watch them thus arching their 

 wings as a prelude to flight, in the same way as a diver 

 raises his arms before the plunge. There is something 

 deliberate and formal in it — ^like taking off one's hat 

 before entering a church. It is a kind of propitiatory 



