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The same rapid development of wing may be observed in chickens and turkeys, but not in water-fowls, nor in birds that are safely housed in the nest till full-fledged. The other day, by a brook, I came suddenly upon a young sandpiper, a most beautiful creature, enveloped in a soft gray down, swift and nimble and apparently a week or two old, but with no signs of plumage either of body or wing.
Sandpiper had only drawn together a few bayberry leaves, brown and glossy, a little pale green lichen, and a twig or two, and that was a pretty enough house for her. Four eggs, about as large as robins', were within, all laid evenly with the small ends together, as is the tidy fashion of the Sandpiper family.
CURLEW SANDPIPER. Tringa subarquata, Güldenstaedt. French, "Becasseau cocorli." The Curlew Sandpiper, or Pigmy Curlew as it is sometimes called, can only be considered a rare occasional visitant to the Channel Islands. I have never seen or shot one there myself, but Mr. Couch records one in the 'Zoologist' for 1874 as having been shot near the Richmond Barracks on the 5th of October of that year.
The glossy green of the upper plumage and the barring of the under wing- coverts and the tail identify this bird with the Green Sandpiper; whilst on the other side the yellowish spots on the scapulars and tertials, the black rump, the length of the leg, and the web between the outer and middle toes are characteristic of the Wood Sandpiper of Montagu.
Peter Sandpiper to come help them out, and at night they chirped in their sleep and disturbed Mrs. Sandpiper dreadfully by kicking each other. At last she said she could stand it no longer; they must take care of themselves. So she cried "Pe-tweet, good-by," and then she flew away, leaving Pipsy and Nipsy alone by the sea to take care of themselves.
She had worked like the very devil to kill him. And afterward she had saved him! He grinned. It was final proof that his mind hadn't been playing tricks on him. No one but a woman would have been quite so unreasonable. A man would have completed the job. He began to look for her up and down the white strip of sand. And in looking he saw the gray and silver flash of the hard-working sandpiper.
They were busy, every one, with their own affairs, and Peter would just have to get along without them. Well, Peter could Peter and Dot. For of course he was a grown-up sandpiper now, with a mate of his own, nodding her wise little head the livelong day, and teetering for joy all over the rocks where the red columbine grew.
The near-sighted little sandpiper had discovered him and seemed interested in the operation. It had come a dozen feet nearer, and was perking its head and seesawing on its long legs as it watched with inquisitive inspection the unusual manifestation of life behind the rock. Its twittering note had changed to an occasional sharp and querulous cry. Carrigan wanted to wring its neck.
Several honey-eaters, the little blue turtle dove, the barred-shouldered dove, the tranquil dove, the nutmeg pigeon, the little bittern, the grey sandpiper, the sordid kingfisher, the spotless egret, the blue heron, the ibis all and others frequent such places, and in their season, butterflies come and go.
The world about him was twisted and black, a dizzily revolving thing yet his still fighting mental vision pictured clearly for him a monstrous, bulging-eyed sandpiper as big as a house. Then he toppled back on the white sand, his arms flung out limply, his face turned to the ambush wherein his murderer lay.
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