Above our heads the sullen clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,— One little Sandpiper and I. I watch him as he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; He starts not at my fitful song, Or flash of fluttering drapery. He has no thought of any wrong; He scans me with a fearless eye. Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little Sandpiper and I. Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night, When the loosed storm breaks furiously? My driftwood fire will burn so bright! To what warm shelter canst thou fly? I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky; For are we not God’s children both, Thou, little Sandpiper, and I? —Celia Thaxter. [Illustration: SPOTTED SANDPIPER] [Illustration: LEAST SANDPIPER] “The spotted Sandpiper, in my girlhood, was here, with us, a familiar bird of moist meadows and pond edges, and every season I used to see them stepping about the stones in the little brook that flows through the river woods, across the meadow above the orchard. They frequently nested there, also, and I have often seen the buff, chocolate, spotted eggs. I have seen the birds wading in the stream quite up to their bodies, sometimes dragging their legs after them as children do in play; they can also swim, when they wish to cross a stream without taking to wing, and it is said, when hard pressed or wounded, can dive deep and swim, or rather, fly under water very swiftly, for they use the wings as the Loon does. Teeter and Tip-up are two of its common names, because it seems to be always balancing in order not to tumble over. If you startle it, it gives a frightened cry like ‘peet-weet-weet,’ as it rises, but soon drops again. “This bird has a list of good deeds as an insect eater to plead for its removal from the list of game-birds. Birds consume the most insects in the nesting season when the quick-growing young require constant feeding, and, as it breeds all over North America as far as Hudson Bay, you can see that the Spotted Sandpiper’s field of usefulness is very wide, and wherever he goes, following the sun as he does throughout the seasons, his value, aside from his dainty beauty, does not lie in the morsel of food he would make for those short sighted enough to shoot him, but in the insects of all sorts, including grasshoppers and locusts, he kills in the simple process of getting a living. “Another bird of the moist meadows of rivers and salt creeks is the Killdeer or Little Ring-necked Plover. It is about the size of the Spotted Sandpiper, equally beautiful, and with a certain dignity all its own. We always used to have them in the river meadows, but, since my return this year, I have not seen a single one.