CHAPTER XCIV 



THE BROWN-HEADED GULL 



So certain as March, the roarer, comes round, bringing dry 

 winds that rattle the dead reed-stalks, and raise clouds of 

 dust along the long straight roads of the marshlands, so 

 surely do the puits return to their islets on a certain 

 broad : their last abiding-place. For though they have in 

 recent years essayed to form a colony upon Hickling, where 

 the first nest was robbed and the second pulled out, they 

 try no more, assured of its futility. Nor do the}' return to 

 Somerton Broad, where I saw a colony as recently as the 

 summer of 1885. They dare not; for their eggs were 

 gathered and sent to market by the bushel in the brave days 

 of old ; and though they deserted Somerton Broad some 

 years previous to 1885, they returned thither once more to 

 see if the natives had learned charity. But a provincial 

 population never learns that virtue. And the birds know 

 it, for the}' go only to the bound and chained waters of 

 Hoveton, where, punctually — to a day, the fenmen say — the 

 first stragglers arrive from across the sea, coming inland 

 in a V-formation, their crests still pale white, for the brown 

 cap grows a little later. And at this season, when the 

 reed-cutters are still busy harvesting the swampy crops, 

 the wild, strange cry — a voice like the sea — of the puits 

 fills your heart with gladness, for 3^ou know the spring-time 

 is come. 



And you have not long to wait for the rest of the colony ; 

 day after day their numbers increase, and you see them flash- 

 ing athwart the blue sky with wild cries and settling down. 



