BY THE SEA. II7 



on the bare, level sands, to watch patiently for a 

 passing hopper, or awkwardly flutter along to cap- 

 ture it. They appear at times to stare curiously 

 at the plovers and sandpipers that run among 

 them so easily, and wonder why they can not do 

 the same thing. How long since did these birds 

 resort to such localities for food, or learn the trick 

 of obtaining shore meals that their far-inland rela- 

 tives know nothing of? 



But the plovers and sandpipers are to the 

 manner born. They know the habit and nature of 

 the sea by heart. How adroitly they elude the 

 tumbling surf ! Now running out before the 

 retreating waves to captui-e some billsome morsel ; 

 now daintily picking their way along the sinuous 

 line of the advancing wavelets, or simultaneously 

 displaying a white and gray line of fluttering 

 wings as they rise before the incoming sea, amid 

 a general chorus of tittering which might be com- 

 pared to the screams and laughter of distant bath- 

 ers, as the showery spray falls on their backs. 

 How much their voices are like the peeping of 

 the frogs. Their soft, sweet, treble piping is in 

 response to the sub-bass of the tumbling waves ; 

 the sounding of the highest notes in nature's 

 psalmody, with the deep profundo of the roUing 

 surf. 



On the shore, by the edge of a lodged mass of 

 sea-weed, where the waves are taking it back again 



