CHAPTER LXXXVI 



THE AVOCET 



The day has broken cold and raw. Still you go down to 

 your boat, and push off into the cold grey tide running 

 fiercely to the sea, and keep yourself warm as you row 

 along the saltings, flushing " ox-birds " and " stints," and 

 here and there a flock of widgeon floating on the shallows, 

 for the tide has left the flats, and the slub is dripping wet and 

 drying in the cold morning, as you paddle quietly past a grey 

 salting startling a flock of curlew, that go whisking away in 

 the grey. And suddenly the curious t-kldee of the avocet 

 catches your ear, and you look up a drain and see the digni- 

 fied bird standing some hundred yards away ; and you know 

 'tis an avocet, or " shoe-horn," as the old Broadsmen call him. 

 He knows he is safe at that distance, mayhap, for he does 

 not rise, but goes on gently picking the worms from the 

 slub, now pink in the rising sun ; and you too go on your 

 way, having caught sight of a bird now very rare, because 

 the region of the marshland is contracting, and the collector 

 — a plague on him — is increasing. 



