186 EXTRACTS FROM HIS WORKS [ch. vn. 
hill. How prettily they run over the grey moss and 
lichens, their little feet twinkling, and their full, 
bright, and soft eyes gleaming, as they commence 
their attempts to entice us away from their chosen 
retreats. In the midst of them alight some tiny 
things, black-breasted too, with reddish backs and 
black nebs and neat pointed wings, which they 
stretch right up, and then fold by their sides. 
These are plovers’ pages, which also have their 
nests on the moor. The mist rolls slowly away, 
and is ascending in downy flakes the steep side of 
the corrie, whence comes suddenly on the ear the 
loud scream of the curlew—pleasing too, but to the 
deer startling. The fewer of these birds on the moors 
after the 12th of August, the better for the deer¬ 
stalker ; but that day is far distant .—British Birds, 
vol. iv., p. 97. 
17 .—The Common Ring-Plover. 
Were I to describe the manners of this gentle 
creature under the influence of the delightful emo¬ 
tions which the view of it has often excited in me, 
I should probably appear to the grave admirer of 
Nature an enthusiast, or an imitator of other men’s 
musings. "Well, let him think as he lists j but yet 
lives there the man, calling himself an ornithologist, 
who, quietly strolling along the bright sandy beach 
just left bare by the retiring tide, and aroused from 
his pleasing reveries by the mellow, whistle of the 
