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True enough, about the edges of the water were two or three solitary sandpipers, and at least half a dozen of the smaller yellowlegs, two additions to my Florida list, not to speak of a little blue heron and a green heron, the latter in most uncommonly green plumage. It was well I had interpreted the placard a little generously.
Floating branches, occasionally covered with berries, pieces of wood, bits of cane, were encouraging signs. Birds like ducks and sandpipers became common sights. The Queen had promised a small pension to the one who should first see land. Columbus had offered to give a silken doublet in addition. With what eagerness the sailors must have kept on the lookout!
The plovers and sandpipers and snips run rapidly. Among the land-birds, the grouse, pigeons, quails, larks and various blackbirds walk. The swallows walk, also, whenever they use their feet at all, but very awkwardly. The larks walk with ease and grace.
The canoe moves on, slowly, noiselessly; here the water is only three inches deep, but the soft bottom yields as the strong young arms ply the paddle. Hilda lifts her hand with a warning gesture, and they are motionless once more. Look! not fifty yards away, a group of pretty birds play and paddle in the shallow water. Sandpipers, are they?
Our bag during this lucky day, including the tigress killed by my shot on the river bank, was as follows: three tigers, one boar, four deer, including the young one taken alive, eight sandpipers, nine plovers, two mallards, and two teal. We resume the beat. The hog-deer. Nepaulese villages. Village granaries. Tiger in front. A hit! a hit! Following up the wounded tiger. Find him dead.
White drifts of sea-gulls and pelican across the face of the cliff, gray clouds of sandpipers rising from the beach, the dripping flight of ducks over the salt meadows, and the occasional splash of a seal from the rocks, were the only signs of life that could be seen from the decks of passing ships.
Then I crossed more planted fields, climbing more barbed-wire fences, and stopping on the way to enjoy the sweetly quaint music of a little chorus of white-crowned sparrows, and skirted once more the muddy shore of the cane-swamp, where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were still feeding. Once back at the hotel, I opened my Coues's Key to refresh my memory as to the exact appearance of that bird.
Curlews and sandpipers whistled on the shore, complaining sea-mews sailed overhead, and the low-lying skerries outside were swarming with "skarts" and other frequenters of the wild north. "Oh, what a funny face!" exclaimed Junkie, as a great seal rose head and shoulders out of the sea, not fifty yards off, to look at them. Its observations induced it to sink promptly.
As I thought the old one would abandon the egg if the young ones left the nest, I caught them again and covering them up with my hand for some time, they settled down again. Next day all four had disappeared. Montagu says: "It is probable many of the Sandpipers are capable of swimming if by accident they wade out of their depth.
Even under ordinary conditions grasshoppers are a staple food of many members of the shorebird family, and the following species are known to feed on them: Shorebirds are fond of other insect pests of forage and grain crops, including the army worm, which is known to be eaten by the killdeer and spotted sandpiper; also cutworms, among whose enemies are the avocet, woodcock, pectoral and Baird sandpipers, upland plover, and killdeer.
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