After much searching the second nest of the sandpipers was
found. They had built, this time well above the river's most extravagant excesses, in the grass under a large dock, the leaves of which hung down and made a good screen. But accidents are many, for birds as for mice. The farmer who was cutting thistles in the field cut also the dock. Nor was this all. The cattle foregathered under the tree where the nest was and trod much of the grass into mud. At this point the threats were arrested : the birds stuck to their nest in spite of all, hatched out, and when last peen the family were assembled hi their favourite haunt under a hawthorn. I tell the little experience—" from the files of June "—to ask where are those sandpipers now ? I have met. the bird at surprising dates and places in Suffolk, Pem- brokeshire and on the South Coast ; and none of the books seems to me to give a really satisfactory account of the normal movements of the species.
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