IN A BIRD-CLOUD 127 



hawk more particularly ; and, strange as this theory 

 may appear, it is, perhaps, somewhat in support of 

 it, that,^ a few mornings afterwards, I saw a kestrel, 

 first flying with a flock of peewits, and then with 

 one alone. I could not detect any fear of the hawk 

 in the peewits, and it is difficult to suppose — know- 

 ing the kestrel's habits — that he seriously meditated 

 an attack on one of them. In the same way — or 

 what seemed to be the same way — I have seen a 

 hooded crow flying with peewits,^ and a wood- 

 pigeon with starlings: to the latter case I have 

 already alluded. The stone-curlew in the above 

 instance, though separated, for a time, by the hawk, 

 as I suppose, was one of a great flock, amounting, in 

 all, to nearly three hundred, which used to fly up 

 every morning over the moor, where I have often 

 waited to see them. Lying pressed amidst heather and 

 bracken, I once had the band fly right over me, at but 

 a few feet above the ground, so that, when I looked 

 up, I seemed to raise my head into a cloud of birds. 

 A charming and indescribable sensation it was, to be 

 thus suddenly surrounded by these free, fluttering 

 creatures. They were all about me — and so near. 

 The delicate *'whish, whish " of their wings was in my 

 ears, and in my spirit too. I seemed in flight myself, 

 and felt how free and how glorious bird life must be. 

 Almost as interesting is it to see the stone- 

 curlews fly back to their gathering-grounds, in the 

 very early mornings, after feeding over the country, 

 during the night. They come either singly or in 

 twos and threes — grey, wavering shadows on the 

 first grey of the dawn. Sometimes there will be 

 1 " Bird Watching," p. 28. 



