CHAPTER XXVI 



THE TITLARK 



Islets of blossoming hawthorn, clumps of pale green 

 sallow, and trailing brambles rise from the green sea of the 

 far-stretching marshland, while a few scattered windmills 

 guard the grassy plains like beacons — marks to the lazy 

 wherrymen gliding through the land behind their black sails, 

 that disappear round groups of marsh-farm buildings re- 

 calling arks anchored in a green sea. Above is stretched 

 the sky, with the soft fleecy clouds of May, and the warm 

 moist air is quivering with the plaintive wild cries of plover 

 and the joyous carolHng of the larks; when suddenly 

 there is a brief song as a little brown bird rises from the 

 green sea and flits upward as far as the mill-neck, calling 

 tii-wJuet, tu-zvheet, in crescendo. When it reaches this 

 height it pauses, turns on its side, and drops with out- 

 spread wings, calling first c/uick-a-c/iiick-a-chuck, like a 

 sedge-warbler, and alighting, it skulks off like him too. 

 'Tis the voice of the titlark courting. The spring migrants 

 have come out of the foggy sea, and filled the great gaps left 

 by autumn migration, and cold, and birds of prey ; for your 

 hawk and harrier loves a tit-lark as we do a snipe. All 

 through the hard grey winter have the resident titlarks 

 been seen by the melting ice-fields, pecking hungrily at the 

 worms and insects thrown up by the thaw, or feeding round 

 the fenmen's mills. But now their troubles are over, and 

 they are disporting their little bodies before their still more 

 sober-hued mates. Up goes the cock again from his reed- 

 bed or marsh, his little body swelling with his simple love- 



