THE LAKE VILLAGE 199 



trees of larger growth. It was early morning in early- 

 spring : at all events the geese had not gone yet, but 

 were continually flying by overhead, flock succeeding 

 flock, filling the world with their clangour. I watched 

 the sky rather than the earth, feasting my eyes on the 

 long-unseen spectacle of great soaring birds. Buzzard 

 and kite and marsh harrier soared in wide circles above 

 me, raining down their wild shrill cries. Other and 

 greater birds were there as well, and greatest of all 

 the pelican, one of the large birds on which the marsh- 

 men lived, but doomed to vanish and be forgotten 

 as a British species long ages before Drayton lived. 

 But his familiar osprey was here too, a king among the 

 hawks, sweeping round in wide circles, to pause by-and- 

 by in mid career and closing his wings fall like a stone 

 upon the water with a mighty splash. We floated in 

 a world of birds ; herons everywhere standing motion- 

 less in the water, and flocks of spoonbills busily at feed, 

 and in the shallower places and by the margins innumer- 

 able shore-birds, curlews, godwits, and loquacious 

 black and white avocets. Sheldrakes too in flocks 

 rose up before us, with deep honking goose-like cries, 

 their white wings glistening like silver in the early 

 morning sunlight. Other sounds came from a great 

 way off, faintly heard, a shrill confused buzzing clan- 

 gour as of a swarm of bees passing overhead, and looking 

 that way we saw a cloud rising out of the reeds and 

 water, then another and another still — -clouds of birds, 

 each its own colour, white, black, and brown, according 

 to the species — gulls, black terns, and wild duck. Seen 



