THE CRUMBLES. 95 
the pools. We were lucky, too, in unearthing a young Lapwing, which 
feigned injury, and two young Ringed Plover, whose mother went through 
a performance that was new to both of us. She flew at a sloping bank 
of shingle just beyond the nestlings, and clung on to it with wings spread 
somewhat after the manner of a Woodpecker; it was an original, and 
certainly an effective, way of distracting our attention from the young birds. 
But the bonne bouche was yet to come. Returning towards the marsh, 
we espied a small Wader, which I supposed at first to be a Little Stint, 
THE CRUMBLE PONDS. 
a bird which is regularly to be found there in the autumn. It proved, 
however, to be a Temminck, for we not only got a clear view of its colour, 
but when it got up it uttered the unmistakable trill which is always 
attributed to this bird in the books. Turning for a moment to the 
smaller birds, Streeten and I once identified a Bluethroat in September, 
and I have twice shot Blue-headed Wagtails from the flocks of the commoner 
species; but in dealing with the Warblers one is at a serious disadvantage, 
for disadvantages the Crumbles have; firstly, in the matter of the walking, 
which is over loose shingle; secondly, in the multitude of blackberries on 
the bushes. Blackberries mean blackberry-gatherers, and this, too, at the 
time of the autumnal migration; and believing, as I do, in the principle 
of not bringing home anything larger than one can conveniently carry, I 
