Sandgrouse

“ Sandy ran within his shelter so as not to frighten the birds from alighting on the rocks, which appeared to be their intention. Some stunted bushes, covered with a sort of hard, red berry must have attracted them, so Sandy guessed, or perhaps the rocks were a regular feeding ground on account of these same berries. From the mouth of his rift Sandy could command a view of a patch of the berry-bearing bushes. If only the grouse would alight in that particular patch he would be sure of a good shot or two. ”

“ The adults are distinguishable by their whiter appearance at a distance.
Our course lay across a wide bight of the marisma, which projects into the land. Crossing this, nearly knee-deep in mud and water in many parts, we fell in with three packs of Sand-Grouse (Pterocles alchata) . They were excessively wild, flying fast and high, something like teal, anon like plover, and uttering a chorus of harsh croaks. On the open marsh we almost despaired of outmanœuvring them. ”

“ The color of the sand-grouse, for instance, and other species of grouse, of partridges and other birds inhabiting heaths, or of flounders and other fishes inhabiting the sand, strictly approximates in character to that of their dwelling-places, and serves to conceal and protect such beings. And, when we further discover that, in not a few cases, this principle of similarity to their surroundings is carried in some animals—such as the leaf insects and walking-stick insects—to the extent of close and actual mimicry, our surprise is increased. ”

“ Upon the dark muds and the wet shining brown sands it is much more conspicuous; and there are few prettier sights along the shore than a scattered flock of Sanderlings, standing head towards the observer, looking like so many white balls of animated snow. It searches for its food by running to and fro about the beach, often on the very margin of the spent waves, sometimes wading through the shallows, or quickly dodging the foam-flecked in-driving surf. Its food consists of sand-worms, crustaceans, various insects and great quantities of small molluscs. ”

“ All these plants of sandy places grow like that. Sand has no food or drink to give to plants. So they send their roots out, like plants in a desert, until they find what they want. Besides food and drink, they need a firm anchor in the loose sand. The Sea Holly, with its roots deep down and far-spreading, can hold its own, though the gale tears at it and throws its sandy bed here and there.
We pass many small creeping plants as we walk in the dry sand. There is a pretty Sea Convolvulus, with its stems deeply buried. It is a cousin of the common Bindweed. ”

“ Owing to want of sufficient care in keeping up the sandhills, and encouraging the growth of the marrum grass (Ammophila arundinacea) , Agropyrum junceum, the sand-sedge (Carex arenaria) , all of which are indigenous to the locality, they are become no longer a sturdy barrier against the wild ravings of the rough North Sea. ”

“ Any pond, lake or stream will be visited sooner or later by these little sandpipers. You find them teetering along shores, picking up insects and small crustacea which form the diet. Mud banks, sandy shores, pebbly mountain streams, half-sunken logs, all furnish happy hunting grounds.
The teetering tail is distinctive and no other sandpiper has the round black spots on his breast and none has the fluttering flight. They seem to tip-toe thru the air with very short wingbeats. Young and adults in winter plumage do not show the spots but continue to teeter. ”

“ To snare grouse requires no other process than making a few little hedges across a creek, or a few short hedges projecting at right angles from the side of an island of willows, which those birds are found to frequent. Several openings must be left in each hedge, to admit the birds to pass through, and in each of them a snare must be set; so that when the grouse are hopping along the edge of the willows to feed, which is their usual custom, some of them soon get into the snares, where they are confined till they are taken out. ”

“ SAND-GROUSE. A game bird of the family Pteroclidæ, related more nearly to the pigeons than to the grouse. There are rather more than sixteen species, chiefly African, but five are Asiatic and two of these occur also in Europe. They are in all important respects terrestrial pigeons, modified for a grouse-like life. The genus Syrrhaptes contains the three-toed forms, of which there are two species. They have the feet feathered. ”

“ Notwithstanding the sparseness of the vegetation there are very many species represented in the Sand Hill flora, but in spite of this great number of species that are found over the hills and ridges and in the valleys, the most striking characteristic of Sand Hill vegetation is its great monotony due to the domination of bunch-grasses, which are the controlling elements of the floral covering of the whole region. ”

“ The grouse, for instance, is a widely spread genus, or rather family; for it consists of [Pg 308] more genera than one. It is so extensively present over the northern hemisphere, that Siberia, Norway, Iceland, and North America, have all their grouse,—the latter continent, indeed, from five to eight different kinds; and yet so restricted are some of the species of which they consist, that, were the British islands to be submerged, one of the best known of the family,—the red grouse, or moor-fowl (Lagopus Scoticus) ,—would disappear from creation. ”

“ And the inquiry might well be made as to the source of food of the Sand-grouse when one sees a large flock in the desert places that they love to be in during the day, if one did not know of their wondrous powers of flight, which make nothing of flying scores of miles to the far-distant edges of cultivated ground. ”

“ As you walk there, when the wind blows from the sea, the fine, dry, invisible particles rain on your face and sting your eyes; but all this travelling sand comes from the beach and can do no harm, for where it falls it must lie and serve as food for the conquering sea rush. If you examine the earth you will find it bound down with a matting of tough roots and rootlets, and that in the spaces between the tussocks the decaying rush has formed a thin mould and is covered with mosses and lichens, and in many places with a turf as on the chalk downs. ”

“ Sand-grouse seem to be pleasant sociable birds, happy in their family life; at the non-breeding season they foregather into{96} large companies, in which order they fly great distances to and fro to whatever pools or water they customarily visit each evening, and it is at these places that the most deadly shooting can take place, for they are very regular in their “flighting.” ”

“ There are many people who still think that the Sand Hill region is a plantless waste of wandering dunes. This is far from fact, but nevertheless the vegetation of the region is sparse and there are also many instances of actively moving sands, although by far the greatest portion of the area is effectively protected from wind erosion by the presence of vegetation. Nowhere except in the moister habitats, as in the valleys, do the plants grow densely or close together. On the hills proper the light-colored sand always shows between the individual plants. ”

“ Sandy shoals skirt the coast, and numerous inlets and basins of water divide the flat lands, and frequently produce escarpments of the hills, which show them to be composed of strata of sand of various colours, sometimes inclosing very large logs of drift timber. There is a coating of black vegetable earth, from six inches to a foot in thickness, covering these sandy hummocks, and some of the escarped sides appeared black, which was probably caused by soil washed from the summit. ”

“ It made its way through thick forest of spruce, birch and white cedar, among thickets of alder, dogwood and mountain maple, where the leaves were turning yellow and red and beginning to fall, it rippled and foamed over rocks through narrow gullies between steep ridges, slipped quietly along among aspens and birches, and crept sluggishly through bogs covered with spongy moss, pitcher plants, labrador tea and other bog growths. When the stream made a bend to the southwest, the explorers parted company with it, and struck off to the northwest. ”

“ Sandy spots in the mountains are often brightened by lovely patches of the soft pink blooms of this attractive and odd-looking little plant. Near Wawona, on the Glacier Point trail, I saw at least half an acre of sand carpeted with beautiful rose-color. In moderate altitudes the plants are about ten inches tall, but they get dwarfish as they climb and on the mountain-tops they are only an inch or so high, with close mats of small leaves. ”

“ But in truth these tender shades show where the sand is weathered, for if we walk upon it and break the thin crust created by the last rain, the dream tints depart, and a brighter corn colour breaks through. Coarse mat-grass binds the dunes and helps to hold them together against the forces of wind and water; but their tendency is [24] to decrease. Perhaps observation would prove that their masses shift and vanish more quickly than we guess, for the sand is the sea's toy, and she makes and unmakes her castles at will. ”

“ The return migration begins in April, and lasts over May into June. There can be little doubt that the Sanderling migrates by night. Few birds are more trustful and engaging than this pretty little Arctic stranger. It not only frequents the long reaches of sand, but mud-flats, estuaries, and the creeks and streams in salt-marshes; its favourite haunts, however, are the sands. During its sojourn on our coast it consorts in flocks of varying size; 106 and very frequently a small party attach themselves to a larger gathering of Dunlins, or Ringed Plovers. ”

“ It is very interesting to observe the habits of the Sandhoppers and other Amphipods both on the sandy beach and in the water, and the student will find that certain species burrow into the sand with considerable agility, and live principally at the extreme high-water mark, where they feed on the organic matter washed in by the breakers at each high tide, while others dwell almost exclusively in the water, among weeds and stones, and should be searched for at low water. ”

“ A pest of moss has overspread and destroyed great numbers of the large growth. Among living trees, I saw a few of the naia, false sandalwood, pricked out bright-green by stray sunbeams.
Over the tussocks of grass we raced, senses aching with very pleasure of motion in so boundless a survey. The declining earth stretches in an unbroken expanse; then suddenly, under a clearing sky, an unguessed deep serration yawns at our feet. The little horses drop easily from the prairie into tropic ferns and flowering lehua, where the ground is lush, the air hot as a greenhouse. ”

“ One can not but admire the vegetation that possesses the power of successfully resisting such a combination of conditions. That Sand Hill vegetation has been very successful in meeting these conditions is fully attested by a glance at the region as we find it to-day and a comparison with the dismal waste of bare sand dunes that once wandered over this same area.
Aside from the bunch-grasses, the most characteristic plant of the uplands is the dagger weed (Yucca glauca) which often occurs m great abundance on the upper slopes. ”

“ I noticed a considerable change in the country to the East, over which there spread a forest of desert oak, and near the sandhills thickets of ti-tree. The well seems to be at the head of an ill-defined watercourse, which, lower down, runs between an avenue of bloodwoods. Close to the well are several large ant-heaps, and from the sandhill above it little can be seen; but north of the well one mile distant is a high ridge of sand, from which is visible a prominent square hill, bearing 334° distant eighteen miles ”

“ The flora which found its subsoil in the Old Red Sandstone north of the Grampians, belonged to a scene of things so much more modern than the flora which found its subsoil in the Old Red Sandstone of the south, that all its productions were green and flourishing, waving beside lake, river, and sea, at a time when the productions of the other were locked up, as now, in sand and shale, lime and clay,—the dead mummies of ages long departed. ”

“ There are various forms of grouse—the red grouse, the willow grouse, and others—but the one thing that does not exist here is sand grouse, and why in the name of common sense we are going on year after year with the object of acclimatising a form of grouse which is not a grouse at all I cannot understand. ”

“ The grouse is larger than the partridge, and, when full grown, weighs from twenty to two-and-twenty ounces. The plumage is variegated, and beautifully composed of black, red, and white; the tail being similar to that of the partridge, but a little larger when extended in flight.
The GROUSE perseveringly adhere to those mountains and moors which are covered with heath, seldom or ever descending into the lower grounds. They fly in packs, consisting of four or five brace; and indulge upon intervening tracts of soft mossy ground, particularly in the hotter months of the year. ”

“ The fine, wave-marked sand is full of heaps, covered with lines, left by the large, much sought after bait-worms, that burrow down into the earth. Hidden among the stones, or in the masses of sea-weed, lie the quick, transparent, shrimp-like sand-hoppers, which dart through the shallow water when they are pursued. They are used by small boys as bait, upon a bent pin, to catch young coal-fish.
Upon the high grassy hill above the beach, among some large stones, we three children built our own warehouse of flat stone slabs, with store-house, boat-house and quay below. ”