than the plover's, and are making the best of the high tide, which has driven them from their feeding-grounds, by taking a siesta. Once, when I look that way,—which I can do only now and then, there are so many distractions,—I find the whole eight with their bills tucked under their wings. Now, isn't that a pretty sight! Their name, as I say, is the redbacked sandpiper; but at this season their upper parts are of a uniform mouse color, or soft, dark gray—I hardly know how to characterize it. It is very distinctive, whatever word we use, and equally so is the shape of the bill, long and stout, with a downward inflection at the tip. Eight birds, did I say? No, there are nine, for I have just discovered another, not on the island, but under the very edge of the grassy bank on which I am standing. He has a broken leg, poor fellow, and seems to prefer being by himself; but by and by, with a sudden cry of alarm, for which I can see no occasion, he flies to rejoin his mates.
Meanwhile, seven white-rumps have come and settled near them; the same flock that I saw yonder on the roadside beach, I have
