BIRDS OF THE SHORES 42} 



clav-colour spotted and streaked with brown, are 

 laid in a hollow scratched in the heath, or amidst 

 scattered stones. When the young birds are 

 approached, they crouch with their heads pressed 

 closely against the sand or shingle, and it often 

 becomes most difficult to distinguish them from 

 their surroundings. 



As the winter's night falls on the sand-dunes, 

 the wind blows desolately ^ A little while before, 

 in the failing evening light, the great river might 

 be seen moving to the sea, its waveless tide flowing 

 drearilv through a desert of featureless mud. 

 Now the river is lost in the gloom, and nothing 

 can be made out save when some stray gleam 

 touches the ooze of the mud-flats. The tiny point 

 of light on some distant boat, which flickered for 

 awhile on the water, goes out, or is hidden by some- 

 thing intervening. All is darkness and silence, 

 broken only by the sigh of the wind and the 

 distant lapping of the sea on the stones. 



Suddenly the scene changes. Far over the sea- 

 like waters of the river appears a long, narrow 

 golden line. Slowly it broadens, and soon golden 

 lines lie upon the mud-flats, waking them into 

 beauty. As the moon rises fully, a long shining 

 pathway stretches from the horizon, and across 

 this the night-feeding birds, sometimes singlv, 

 sometimes in hungry flocks, move like shadoAvs. 



Soon a single IMallard beats across the dusk of 

 the sky : then a dark mass sweeps over the bents, 

 makinor for the distant edo:e of the river. In a little 



j^ .^. ...^ ^.. v-v^j^ 



while a Redshank whistles and a Curlew cries in 



