OF THE MARSH 193 



out his own salvation. If a man will let himself out 

 to hack the face of Nature in this way, I am not here 

 to make it easier for him." And so he carved his way 

 along the main ditch until he came to the corner 

 where a willow sapling had been planted to strengthen 

 the bank. 



It was in that corner that the Common Sand- 

 piper nested this spring. The birds used to run 

 about on the little mud patch before the willow, 

 jerking their white rumps, and crying "Pee-eep!" 

 with such anxious vehemence that I could see into 

 their long, wide-open bills as if they had been slit 

 quills. Always a passenger on the river Mersey at 

 the periods of migration, the Sandpipers this spring 

 deputed a pair of their number to nest in this some- 

 what un-sandpiperly spot to mark their appreciation 

 of man's desertion of it. The four young ones duly 

 appeared in the fourth week of June, and it was at 

 this particular corner I first saw them four white, 

 fluff-covered chicks, standing together on a little 

 mud mound, and jerking their hinder parts with 

 such violence that, when two collided in the act, 

 the shock threw both to the ground. Seeing them 

 all islanded with their mother on a mud patch 

 surrounded by water, I was curious to learn how 

 they would make their escape if I went near. My 

 curiosity got the better of discretion, and in following 

 the main ditch I stepped straight through the grass 

 roof of the cross ditch into an indefinite depth of 

 ooze, saving myself when sunk to the knees by 

 throwing my body back on the ditch bank. 



It was precisely at this spot that my friend of the 

 bill-hook but a truce to this friendship, I will e'en 



