And now, if we return to our northern shores and pause upon the broad wet sands at low tide, we may chance to find whole flocks of active little birds hovering and running and wading in the water, or pecking on the sands; and the double-noted whistle of the Curlew, or the musical cry of the Peewit (or Lapwing), tell us at once that they are “waders,”--birds with bare legs, flat toes, and long beaks, which drop down on the muddy flats by the sea, seeking their food at the edge of the water. There they are, Curlews and Dunlins and Sandpipers, Plovers and Knots, Oystercatchers feeding on mussels and limpets, and Turnstones tilting up the lumps of mud to find food beneath. One and all they are running hither and thither, to seize here a shrimp or sandhopper or a tiny fish, there a worm or a sea-slug; making the most of their time before the sea comes up and covers their feeding ground. [Illustration: Fig. 39. A group of Wading Birds. 1, Stilt; 2, Avocet; 3, Peewit; 4, Dunlins; 5, Curlew Sandpiper; 6, Sanderling; 7, Oystercatcher; 8, Curlew; 9, Turnstone.] Here we have no webbed feet or legs set far back, but three long, flat, straight toes, well fitted for walking on marshy ground and treading lightly on water-plants, and slender bodies well balanced on long thin legs, which move so quickly as they run that you can scarcely see them; while, when they fly, their long wings carry them lightly through the air, with their legs stretched out behind. [Illustration: Fig. 40. The Flamingo. A duck-billed and web-footed bird among the waders.] What connection can there be between these active light little beings, and the broad-bodied web-footed swimmers? Go to the Zoological Gardens, and look at the Flamingo, with his long legs and curious curved beak. He is of the true swimming type, with his webbed feet and his sieve-like bill, with its rows of horny strainers like the geese; yet he feeds by wading in salt-water lakes and pools on the sea-shore, raking the bottom for food, and showing how a swimmer and a wader may once have had the same starting-point, before the one went out to sea, and the other in to shore. And then when we come back to our own little waders, and learn that they visit the sea, and feed upon the wet sands from the autumn to the spring, and then fly inland to build their nests in the damp meadows, feeding on earthworms, slugs, and insects of the land, we can see what an advantage this double life must be to them. Notice, too, how shy and timid they have become from living among other animals, and watching for every danger. Try to get near one, and see how it will run on, turning its head hither and thither to watch, and at last will rise and be out of sight in no time. Or go and look for plover’s eggs on the swampy grounds in our northern counties in the early summer, when “... from the shore The plovers scatter o’er the heath, And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.”