VIII 



Just out of hearing of the grasshopper war- 

 blers, there was a good-sized pool of water on 

 the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its 

 bottom now overgrown with rushes. A sedge 

 warbler, the only one on the common, lived in the 

 masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and 

 birds of so many kinds came to it to drink and 

 bathe that the pool became a favourite spot with 

 me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered 

 near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low 

 scrub at my feet and fluttered, as if wounded, 

 over the turf for a space of ten or twelve yards 

 before flying away. Not many minutes after 

 seeing the wagtail, a reed-bunting — a bird which 

 I had not previously observed on the common — 

 flew down and alighted on a bush a few yards 

 from me, holding a white crescent-shaped grub 

 in its beak. I stood still to watch it, certainly 

 not expecting to see its nest and young; for, as 



107 



