34 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



our regards — they were turned towards the wet sea- 

 beaches. 



A httle way down the sandy loke two little birds flew 

 up — tom-tits, I thought ; indeed, the hen, as we afterwards 

 found, flew from blossoming gorse to gorse with the flight 

 of a wren. And indeed I thought the bird a wren, but sud- 

 denly a little fellow with a golden crest flew from a spray 

 of blooming blackthorn, and I recognised the brave, cheery 

 Httle goldcrest. In sooth, his very tameness and confi- 

 dence showed his kind ; for, though brave as a lion, trust- 

 ing and loving is the little goldcrest. And the seas and 

 marshes, the gleaming ridges of sandhills and marram-crests 

 were forgotten ; the sweet little cheepings of the little pair 

 of goldcrests were more attractive. There he sat on a 

 gorse spray — they love the gorse down there — cheeping and 

 picking insects from the prickly leaves. He, a mite of seventy 

 grains in weight, a mere living atom of feathers — he, with his 

 loving little wife, had come across the turbulent seas. What 

 hope ! what bravery ! Yes, indeed, he with a young wife goes 

 down into the deep, flying just above the waters, hopeful 

 that no storm will arise and tire his slender wings, blowing 

 him down into the trough of the sea to perish miserably, a 

 common fate with his tribe, as their little bodies prove to 

 kind-hearted fishermen who see them floating on the waves 

 after a gale, and mutter to themselves sadly, " Poor little 

 warmin ! " for they cannot alight on the water and ride out 

 the storm as do the stormy petrels. Poor little herring- 

 spink ! for he has to cross in the autumn with that vast 

 crush of birds — the migrants contemptuously called by the 

 fenmen "wheat-pickers" (^.^., the tree-sparrows, rooks, larks, 

 wood-pigeons), that the boats meet during the herring- 

 fishing in misty autumn, when the snow falls and a north- 

 west wind blows. They come and go by their appointed 

 paths — larks steering east to west, flying low, just above 

 the water. And the strong men who go down in the fishing- 

 boats will tell you of the flocks upon flocks they meet 



