MELLOW WHISTLE OF RING-PLOVER 187 
ring-plover, would not gaze with delight on the 
pleasant little thing that speeds away before him 
with twinkling feet, now stops, pipes its clear cry, 
runs, spreads its beautiful wings, glides close over 
the sand, and alights on some not distant tuft. 
What are primaries and secondaries, coecums and 
duodenums, types and analogies, squares or circles, 
to him who thus watches the living bird ? There is 
the broad blue sea, on that hand the green pasture, 
under foot and around the pure sand, above the 
sunny sky. Frown not upon the cheerfulness of 
Nature ; shout aloud, run, leap, make the sand lark 
thy playmate. Why mayest thou not be drunk 
with draughts of pure ether ? Are the gambols of 
a merry naturalist less innocent than the mad 
freaks, the howlings, the ravings of sapient men 
assembled to deliberate about corn-laws, or party 
zealots upholding their creed by palpably demon¬ 
strating their total want of charity ?—British Birds , 
vol. iv., p. 119. 
18. — The Sea-Pie. 
Should one consider the sea-pie the most 
beautiful of our native birds, I should not much 
censure his taste. When by the silver Dee, gliding, 
rapidly along, amidst corn-fields, pastures, and 
fragrant birch-woods, you hear a loud and shrill 
cry, and, turning about, see a pair winging their 
flight up the country, their glossy black and pure 
