110 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Further on, in a little shingly bay of the clay cliff of the 
salting, you disturb a solitary Dotterel (Hudromias morinellus) on 
its way to Palestine or Egypt:or North Africa, after having 
nested on some lonely mountain top in the remote Highlands, or 
possibly in the Lake District, under all the difficulties that come 
of too much notoriety. A handsome little Plover is the Dotterel, 
its head black with white touches, and the ash-brown of its back 
setting off the warm chestnut colour of its lower breast and 
flanks. 
In a more distant part of tie beach you happen upon one of 
those sights which warm the bird-lover’s heart—some hundreds of 
Lesser Terns (Sterna minuta), a score of Common Terns (S. fluvia- 
tilis), a dozen or more Turnstones, and large numbers of Ringed 
Plovers and Dunlins (Tringa alpina), all sitting on a ridge of 
sand just above the wrack left by the tide. Careful manceuvring 
enables you to get a good view with the glasses without disturbing 
them. It is easy to distinguish the flecked plumage of the 
Lesser Terns of this year; amongst the Ringed Plovers the pale 
brown, broken, pectoral band marks out the youngsters of that 
species; and the Dunlins have still the dark patch on the lower 
breast which forms their summer decoration. The Turnstones 
run restlessly along the edge of the débris which marks the limit 
of the tide, and one, with a sidelong turn of its head, tips over a 
fairly large flat pebble with its beak in its search after insects 
or Crustacea. But a careless movement causes the whole mixed 
mob to rise in a cloud, filling the air with cries. The long 
drawn-out “scree”? of the Common Tern, the chattering 
‘‘skerrek”’ of the Lesser Tern, the sad, soft whistle of the 
Ringed Plover, the ‘‘ purre”’ of the Dunlin, and the twittering 
whistle of the Turnstone, form a chorus of- sounds which is 
music to the ears of the man lying half-hidden in the long grass, 
recalling as it does memories of the wild moorland, of pebble 
ridges with great waves of the ocean breaking on them, and of 
many a happy day spent without a care in the freshness and 
freedom of the open air. 
A reply comes ringing from the sky in response to the babel 
on the beach—a shrill, whistling call, like ‘‘ tetty-tetty-tetty ’— 
and far overhead in the sky a string of ‘small dots can be dis- 
tinguished as a dozen birds, which we know from their note to 
