and so, at this particular time, they are seen in flocks; but immediately the receding tide permits them to return to their search after food, they disperse. In the winter months, during the time of low water, you seldom see so many as half-a-dozen in company: in the autumn there is a slight deviation from this habit: I have seen them at that time of the year spring from their feeding-ground in lots of fifteen or twenty, and have known two or more killed at once by shooting among them.
Their food I take to be marine insects, shrimps, small fry, &c, with the worms which may chance to lie exposed. I have never seen any traces of either digging or boring left by them. I do not, however, mean to assert that they never do bore.
When suddenly alarmed, their flight at its commencement is very irregular and tortuous, but soon becomes tolerably steady. It is rapid, but rarely protracted.
Their cry is loud and shrill, and may consequently be heard at a great distance, and I think may, without much aid from imagination, be denominated expressive. At times it is plaintively querulous, but more generally, if I may so express myself, objurgatory and scolding. From their habit of making a great outcry when disturbed, they are not great favorites with the gunners or wild fowl shooters, who, during the winter, are numerous on the coasts I have named.
Towards the end of May and in June they are very busily engaged in the work of propagation; and, at this time, though particularly vigilant and suspicious at the approach of man or dog (particularly the latter) to the place in which their eggs are deposited, they do not venture very near the cause of alarm if it be a man, though they jealously watch all his movements as long as he remains near their haunts. On his first showing himself, perhaps only a single bird is seen, who comes rapidly towards him, ceaselessly uttering her complaining note: in a few seconds another and another come up, and they continue to fly round the intruder in wide circles, rarely coming within gun-shot. His dog, if he have one, meets with attention far more close: he is completely persecuted: now one bird dashes down, and appears literally to fly in his face; a second sweeps over his back, almost touching him; while a third comes upon him from behind: in short, much the same scene occurs as when a number of swallows espy a cat taking a noon-day walk on a house-top, only the scene in question is accompanied with the incessant utterance of single short plaintive notes.
If you happen to revisit the spot after the lapse of ten or fifteen
