149 



BhaUow pools of water around it, might be sufficiently clear to enable 

 us to discover what made this point so attractive to them. In the latter 

 not a trace of life was discernible, and of the former we found only 

 a pellet of for, from the centre of which peeped, what proved to be the 

 tail, and a few of the larger bones of the water vole. About half-way 

 along the wall, were also the weU-picked limbs of a rabbit, the state of 

 which we also should have ascribed to the omnivorous propensities of the 

 bird, but were informed that they were indubitably the remnants of the 

 meal of a fox, which had been observed to frequent the spot for some tmie 

 past. Upon expressing some surprise at this animal selecting such an 

 exposed position for a resting or feeding place, we were informed that the 

 breakwater, near the Berkeley Arms, composed of rough uncemented 

 stones, loosely thrown together, is a not uncommon place of refiige for this 

 animal when hard pressed, in the cavities of which it is perfectly safe from 

 any danger but that of a high tide. It is said to prey to a considerable 

 extent upon the wild geese which frequent "the grounds," and which are 

 their principal tenants from the time of their arrival about Michaelmas 

 day, and that of their departure, which takes place with equal regularity 

 about the twenty-fifth of March. 



From the sounds arising from time to time from Lord Fitzhardinge's 

 decoy ponds, one of which is also on the New Grounds, they appear 

 to be as well tenanted by ducks. 



Upon the sands are three kinds of guU in considerable numbers, which, 

 as well as the heron, from the great distance at which they are found from 

 the nearest breeding places of their tribe, are probably young of the year. 

 The sea mew. Lams minutus, the black-backed gull, Lai-us marinus, 

 and the common gull, Larus canus, may be clearly distinguished, as 

 they are far less timid than the lapwings, amongst which they are 



scattered. 



Whilst speaking of the birds of the district, we may mention that at the 

 inn we saw a stuffed specimen of the curlew, iVw/ne«tws torquatus, which was 

 one of many found dead upon the sands during a long-continued frost of 

 the last hard winter. Whether the frost acted so rapidly upon the sands, at 

 low water, as to prevent their perforation by the bird's slender bill, or 

 whether the intense cold drove the creatures upon which it fed too far from 

 the surface to be reached by it, we were not informed, but we were 

 assured that it was HteraUy starved to death-. These birds do not appear 

 to frequent this district by day, but their cry is frequently heard in the 



night time. 



The interest manifested by ourselves in similar anecdotes of birds, led to 

 the discovery, that our host had been a close, though unconscious, observer 



