CHAP. XXI. CONFUSION OF TIME. 279 



gusts of rain, yet there were more birds tlian usual out 

 feeding. '• It 's the early bird that catches the worm," I said 

 to myself. 



My first care was to seek out the little stint ground ; I 

 saw several birds upon it, but not the trace of a nest could 

 I discover. Then I took a long stroll along the edge of tlie 

 inland sea and by the banks of the river beyond ; as I went 

 along I constantly heard the clear, sharp, but not loud ciy 

 of the little stint and phalarope {wick), but I had not yet 

 learned to distinguish the one from the other, nor could I 

 then tell either from the cry of the sanderling. The 

 spluttering note of the Temminck's stint is very distinct 

 {ft-r-r-r) ; so is the dunlin's thick hoarse cry of 'peezh, or its 

 grating call-note {trr), as well as the noisy too-it of the ringed 

 plover. 



I had been out some hours when I met my companion, 

 and hailed him with " Good morning." He answered with 

 " Good evening." We both agreed the hour was seven, but 

 we differed as to its being a.m. or p.m. I was convinced, 

 it was the morning of the morrow, whereas Brown was 

 persuaded it was yester-evening. A never-setting sun plays 

 strange pranks with one's reckoning of time. 



Harvie-Brown had worked the little stint ground, but 

 had not seen a bird upon it. While with me, he shot a brace 

 of grey plovers ; then we parted, and I returned to the 

 little stint feeding haunts. I secured a brace of them, a 

 few dunlins, old and young, and a grey plover ; also some 

 young Temminck's stint half-way between feathers and down. 

 As I -was picking up the latter I discerned in the distance 



