_p021.jpg)
The pretty little ring-plover (Ægialitis hiaticola) belongs properly to the sea-shore, but he haunts and breeds inland also, and is especially the companion of the stone-curlew over the stony, sandy wastes that they both love so well. These little birds have both a nuptial flight and a courting action on the ground. In the former a pair will keep crossing and recrossing as they scud about, or they will sweep towards and then away from each other in the softest and prettiest manner imaginable, or each will sweep first up to a height and then swiftly down again and skim quite low along the ground, thus delighting the eye with the contrast. Their flight is all in graceful sweeps, for even when they beat the air with their slender, pointed pinions, it is rather as though they kissed than beat it, and they seem all the while to be sweeping on without effort, so soft is their motion.21
