A WOOD BY THE SEA 59 



from walls and woods and cliffs — but was fainter and 

 more dilTiiscd, the sounds running into each other and 

 all seeming to run over the flat earth, now here, now 

 there, and fading into mysterious whisperings. It was 

 as if the vigorous barkings of the living dog had roused 

 the ghosts of scores and hundreds of perished ones; 

 that they had come out of the earth, and, unable to 

 resist the contagion of his example and the "memory 

 of an ancient joy," were all madly barking their ghost 

 barks and scampering invisible over the sands. 



The chief thing to see was the crows coming in to 

 roost from about four to six o'clock, arriving continually 

 in small parties of from two or three to thirty or forty 

 birds, until it was quite dark. The roosting-place has 

 been shifted two or three times since I have known the 

 wood, and, by a lucky chance, on the last occasion of 

 their going to a fresh place I witnessed the removal 

 and discovered its cause. For two evenings I had 

 noticed a good deal of unrest among the roosting birds. 

 This would begin at dusk, after they were all quietly 

 settled down, when all at once there would be an out- 

 burst of loud angry cawings at one point, as unmistak- 

 able in its meaning as that sudden storm of indignation 

 and protest frequently heard in one part of our House 

 of Commons when the susceptibilities of the party or 

 group of persons sitting together at that spot have been 

 wantonly hurt by the honourable member addressing the 

 House. It would subside only to break out by-and-by 

 at some other spot, perhaps fifty yards away; and at 

 some points the birds would rise up and wheel and hover 



