Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/314

 war on rats and snakes in honest open combat; the superb merganser spread his bright plumage to the sun and surf of this unfamiliar shore; and the sea-mew less confidently trusted himself to the south-west sands, where the aloe, and the hesperis, and many an unknown thing growing there, startled him as he made for the inland pools and streams. The laughing-mew and the stream-swallow sought the shelter of the rushes and the reeds, and most of the family of the gulls were to be seen upon the wing above the shallows where sea and river blended. More rarely, and alone, might perchance be seen the northern oyster-catcher (misnamed) hunting his worms and tiny fish in the shallows of the shore, meeting perchance the merry turnstone bent on the same quest, but never wetting his slender feet more than by contact with wet pebbles he was compelled to do. Whilst, by the side of the polar piscatricides, with their plumage of snow-white or grey, there were along the line of the breaking waves, and oftener beside the shallows of the swamps, slender and lofty shapes of radiant rose colour, bending their slim long necks, lithe as wands of willow, or standing motionless