188 
EXTRACTS FROM HIS WORKS [ch. vii. 
white plumage contrasting strongly with everything 
around, and their long vermilion beaks giving them 
a strange and foreign aspect, they never fail to rivet 
your gaze. Equally attractive are they when 
running about on some grassy meadow, picking up 
an insect or a slug, then standing, and again 
advancing with quick, short steps, prettily tripping 
it among the gowans; then emitting their loud 
alarm-cries, and flying off to a more distant place, 
or alighting on a pebbly beach. No creature but 
man seems to molest them; but of his advances 
they are always suspicious, as good need they have 
to be .—British Birds , vol. iv., p. 158. 
19,—Dunlins Feeding. 
I, on the 9th of September 1840, walked to 
Musselburgh, where I was informed that the sand¬ 
pipers were very abundant; and, having betaken 
myself to the mouth of the Esk soon after the tide 
had turned, was gratified by the sight of a great 
number of dunlins and ring-plovers. In the first 
place I met with two flocks reposing, the one 
among some thin herbage, composed chiefly of 
Glaux maritima; the other on a slightly elevated 
part of the sand, just above water-mark. Indi¬ 
viduals of both species were intermingled, all lying 
flat on the ground, and in a crouching attitude, with 
the neck drawn in. Thus, as I have elsewhere 
observed, these birds repose during the period of 
