100 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



felt now that I was tired, and when the flock rose 

 higher and still higher I laboured to rise with it. At 

 intervals those who were leading uttered cries to pre- 

 vent the others from straggling, and from far and 

 near there were responsive cries ; but from the time 

 that the dark, wetting cloud had come over us I uttered 

 no sound. Sometimes I opened my beak and tried to 

 cry, but no cry came ; and sometimes as we flew my 

 eyes closed, then my wings, and for a moment all 

 sensation was lost, and I would wake to find myself 

 dropping, and would flutter and struggle to rise and 

 overtake the others. At last a change came, a sudden 

 warmth and sense of land, a solid blackness instead of 

 the moving, gleaming sea beneath us, and immediately 

 we dropped earthwards like falling stones, down into 

 the long grass by the shore. Oh, the relief it was to 

 fold my wings at last, to feel the ground under me, the 

 close, sheltering stems round and over me, to shut 

 my tired eyes and feel no more ! 



" When morning came, the cries of my fellows woke 

 me : they were calling us up and going away over the 

 marshes to the green country ; but I could not follow 

 nor make any response to their calls. I closed my eyes 

 again, and knew no more until the sun was high above 

 the horizon. All were gone then — even my own 

 mate had left me ; nor did they know I was hidden 

 here in the grass, seeing that I had not answered to 

 the call. They thought perhaps that I had fallen out 

 a long way back, when the rain oppressed and drove 

 us down and when probably other members of the 



