212 
SCOLOPACIL).?^. 
to cause a pretty heavy swell These birds may then be seen 
to advantage, running and climbing about the large rocks, pick- 
ing off shells and small insects ; every returning wave apparently 
so nearly sweeping them away, as it rolls foaming up the steep 
beach, that, in spite of one’s self, it is almost impossible to leave 
the spot, fully expecting that the next will overwhehn them. 
But often as I have ^vatched them, such an untoward event 
has never been witnessed, so vigilant are they, however deeply 
engaged in their search ; and so nimbly do they rise, almost 
perpendicularly, at the precise moment when the rising wave 
seems to be upon the point of bearing them with it. It is 
usually during or immediately after a gale, when the whole 
of the rocky parts of the coast are buried under a constant cloud 
of heavy spray, that they seek the open shore. There, in com- 
pany with Turnstones, Dunlins, or Einged Plovers, they find, cast 
up by the sea, more than sufficient for their wants, though they 
still prefer to obtain their food at the very edges of the waves. 
Wdien, however, the gale is so furious that remaining exposed 
to it is utterly impossible, they retreat to the shelter of the 
rocks ; but they sometimes come inland, where they seem pretty 
well contented under the lee of the walls. I have seen them 
at such times feeding within a few yards of the front of the 
house. 
As spring approaches, small parties are often met with upon 
the tops of the hills, several hundred feet above the level of the 
sea. Eeturning homewards rather late one evening, across a 
])iece of wet gravelly ground upon a hill near Balta Sound, 1 
lieard a low grating noise, and after some little search discovered 
that it proceeded from a Purple Sandpiper, which was standing- 
near with its bill partly open, and apparently making great 
efforts to swallow something. I then shot the bird, and found 
in its mouth a small roundish stone, partly covered with a 
minute vegetable substance, which also grew in great abun- 
dance upon every stone beneath the slowly trickling water. A 
large quantity of the same substance was present in the stomach 
and fX'sophagus, and more of it was thickly entangled in the 
