30 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



merit of the feathered nations were being held. Rooks 

 and crows, both black and hooded, and daws are often 

 there in hundreds ; lapwings too in hundreds, and 

 black-headed gulls and starlings and wintering larks, 

 with other small birds. The geese repose, the others 

 are mostly moving about in search of worms and 

 grubs. The lapwings are quietest, inclined to repose 

 too ; but at intervals they all rise up and wheel 

 about for a minute or so, then drop to earth again. 



As I stand motionless leaning on a gate watching 

 them, having them, as seen through the glasses, no 

 more than twenty yards away, I note that for all 

 their quietude in the warm sleepy sunshine they are 

 wild geese still, that there are always two or three 

 to half a dozen who keep their heads up and their 

 eyes wide open for the general good, also that the 

 entire company is subject at intervals to little con- 

 tagious gusts and thrills of alarm. It may be some 

 loud unusual noise — a horse on the road suddenly 

 breaking into a thunderous gallop, or the " hoot- 

 hoot " of a motor-car ; then the enraged scream of a 

 gull or carrion-crow at strife with his neighbour ; 

 the sleepers wake and put up their heads, but in a 

 few moments they are reposing again. Then a great 

 heron that has been standing motionless like a grey 

 column for an hour starts up and passes swaying and 

 flapping over them, creating a fresh alarm, which 

 subsides as quickly as the first. By-and-by a fresh 

 flock of geese arrive, returning from some inland 

 feeding-ground, where the gunners have been after 



