3 7° Ornithological Observations and Reflections in Shetland. 
Other Herring Gulls were feeding at low tide, on the beds 
of mussels with which the rocks furthest out are lined. They 
pulled them off in a leisurely connoisseur-like fashion, with slow 
step and keen, if something of a blase glance. They did not 
retreat before each incoming wave, but let it splash all over 
and about them, keeping their places, unless well-nigh washed 
out of the way. This boldness and contempt of salt water 
contrasts very strongly with the way in which wading birds run 
before the tide, when feeding on the wet mud or sand, e.g., the 
Redshank, Oyster Catcher, Knot and others. The Ringed 
Plovers are more venturesome — at least on a calm day, and at 
the very end of the voe. Under such emboldening conditions 
these pretty little birds may be seen chasing each baby wave, as 
it recedes, picking up, in haste, such palatable morsels as the 
exposed shore may offer to their view, and allowing themselves 
to be overtaken, shank-high, by the returning flood. But there 
is no foam or spray here, a few placid bubbles, merely, nothing 
to frighten them. 
All the while they keep uttering their little inspiriting note — 
chee-ree, chee-ree — a sort of seashore chirrup, less plaintive 
than is usual with birds of their class. The first idea conveyed 
to one by these soft little creatures, with their dainty yet brisk 
motions, quick little runs and sudden stops, abrupt, but 
becoming, is one of peace and harmony, but longer observation 
shows that a war-like spirit is hidden under these surface 
appearances, which, at any moment, may break out. Almost 
everyone of them, in turn, seems highly indignant with some 
other one, and a succession of little pitter patter chasings, 
ending, as a rule, in a flight along the strand, is the result of 
this tension of feeling. Sometimes there is a skirmish when 
the two, for the time, most indignant ones, darting at each 
other, with fanned tails, stand for some swelling moments, 
side by side, each with a strong list towards his enemy. Then 
come some fierce little peckings, but they desist, all at once, 
as if things were becoming too serious, and fly away mutually 
scandalised. Their usual gait is the little run before mentioned 
—much more rarely a walk — but sometimes they hop on one 
leg, or stand for awhile so, and occasionally make a curious sort 
of jump with the two. Everything is by fits and starts nothing 
continuous, but all — even to each little peck down into mud, 
sand or seaweed — as though it sprang from a sudden quite novel 
idea. They bathe very prettily, in little pools of the shore, just 
where these mingle with the sea and deepen around them with 
the swell of the tide ; here they sit, showering with the wings 
and dilating the plumage for the drops to pierce it, after the 
usual fashion. Having finished, they rise gracefully on the 
wing, and flutter, for a little, a few feet above the scene of their 
recent ablutions, before descending, again, to run off. 
Naturalist. 
