they go many together. Even here the sea-pie is wary, and in a more populous place I doubt if anything would tempt him inland. Yet it is curious that in an island where I have been the one inhabitant I have never seen these birds feeding or walking anywhere except on the tidal shore, quite near the sea, though they often flew over the island, whereas here, in Unst, I have seen them thus searching the green-sward in the neighbourhood of Burra Firth, which is a village, though a small one. But then they are much more numerous here, and it was always in the close neighbourhood of the beach, even when not upon it, that I saw them. In this last instance, too, they were no distance at all from the sea—but again, most of the smooth, turfy stretches, where it would be easy to find worms, are so situated. Here, then, is another path along which differentiation might proceed, and by which, in time, an oyster-catcher might become a bird with the habits of the great plover. It is curious that one of the cries of the latter bird in the spring, though very much weaker, is a good deal like the "ki-vick, ki-vick, ki-vick, ki-vick, ki-vick!" of the sea-pie, so that the one rendering might stand for both.
It is pleasant to see a fair-sized flock of these birds gathered together on a smooth stretch of sand just above the line of the waves. Some walk about or stop to preen themselves, others lie all along, whilst a few stand motionless upon one leg, fast asleep, with the head turned and the red bill hidden amongst the pied
