BIRD LIFE, ETC. 163 



cools the burning brow. How unlike the shriek of the 

 heron — but why should we think of it, for it reminds us 

 of the cracked and creaking voice of some village bel- 

 dame of the Saxon race. The clear, gentle tones of 

 the Celtic maiden could not be more pleasant to any 

 one, or perhaps much more welcome to her lover, than 

 the summer note of the golden jjlover to the lover of 

 birds and of Nature. As you listen to it, now distant, 

 now nearer and near, and see the birds with short flights 

 approaching as if to greet you, though in reality with 

 more fear than confidence, with anxiety and apprehen- 

 sion, the bright sunshine that glances on their jetty 

 breasts is faintly obscured by the white vapours that 

 have crept up from the western valley, and presently all 

 around us is suffused with an opaline light, into the con- 

 fines of which abird is dimly seen to advance, then another, 

 and a third. Who could represent the scene on canvas 

 or card ? — a hollow hemisphere of white shining mist, 

 on which are depicted two dark human figures, their 

 heads surrounded with a radiant halo, and these black- 

 breasted golden plovers, magnified to twice their natural 

 size, and gazing upon us, each from its mossy tuft. It 

 is as if two mortals had a conference on the heath with 

 three celestial messengers — and so they have. Pre- 

 sently a breeze rolls away the mist, and discloses a 

 number of those watchful sentinels, each on his mound 

 of faded moss, and all emitting their mellow cries the 

 moment we offer to advance. They are males, whose 

 mates are brooding over their eggs, or leading their 

 down -clad and toddling chicks among the, to them, 



