CHAPTER XXVI 



AUTUMN, I9I 2 



Wells-next-the-Sea — A great man's reason for residing there — 

 The enviable chameleon — Black redstart — Antics of a 

 squirrel — The dreariness of desk-work — Observations on a 

 pair of late-nesting martins — Conflicting instincts — Swallows 

 observed in mid-winter — A curious story of nesting martins 

 and sparrows. 



WELLS-NEXT-THE-SEA, as I have already 

 said in a chapter a long way back in this 

 volume, is one of the spots I love best to 

 frequent in the autumn, chiefly to see and hear the 

 wild geese that winter there in larger numbers than 

 at any other point on the coast. This season of 191 2 

 I had another object in going thither; there remained 

 two or three weeks' work to be done in order to 

 complete this book; and where, flying from London, 

 could one find a place more admirably suited for such 

 a purpose ? A small, ancient, village-like town, set 

 in a low flat land next the sea, or separated from the 

 sea by a mile-wide marsh, grey in summer, but now 

 rust-brown in its autumnal colour. The fisher-folk 

 are poor, and their harvest consists mainly of shell- 

 fish, mussels, whelks, clams, and they also dig at 

 low water for sand-worms to be sold for bait. They 

 are, as I think I remarked before, like their feathered 



fellow-creatures, the hooded crows; and indeed they 



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