200 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



warm grass beds, and showing the fenman where to set his 

 springes ; for Frank cannot conceal his traces — he is bound 

 to leave dung or crush the succulent gladen growing in the 

 yellow-lilied shallows, so betraying his fishing haunt. At 

 such a season, and in winter too, you may sometimes see 

 twenty or thirty together fishing for eels, eating them as 

 gulls eat herring ; and I have seen one throw up five large 

 eels after he was shot, three of them being still alive. 



If you wish to watch Frank's family fishing, you must 

 " hide up " to leeward behind the reeds, and you will see 

 them, their bodies nearly in the water, looking down the 

 dike with one eye; but if one rise all will follow. Go just 

 at shutting-in time, when the partridge is calling and the 

 snipe scaping, the rails snoring, and the goat-sucker has left 

 his day perch, for that time and the early morning, when the 

 marshes are white with mist, are his favourite meal-times ; 

 but upon a moonlit night, when the dikes gleam like silver, 

 and the broad is a polished mirror, Frank will fish all night 

 long, darting his dagger-like bill in and out of the soft black 

 silt, and striking his prey on the ground a few fierce pecks, 

 then throwing it up and catching it head first in his long 

 sharp-boned beak. 



From Michaelmas to Christmas, when they are tamest and 

 most numerous, you may see them flight from the hover, 

 or car, where they have dozed away the day, to their feeding- 

 grounds, flying from five to thirty yards above the ground, 

 calling " Frank, Frank," as they near their favourite dike, 

 where they alight suspiciously, and have their supper ere 

 they flight back to their roosting-place on some dry hover, 

 or in a planting. 



Though Frank is dangerous when wounded, the fen- 

 men say he is not so vicious as a bittern, though more 

 powerful. 



Like the fenmen, Frank may be seen all day in autumn 

 about the marshes, walking along the dikes with his neck 

 " reined " out, peering into the depths for eels ; but he is 



