ip6 THE PLOUGHING 



repeatedly with an embarassing bob that seems to call 

 for recognition. Seen thus, he acquires a peculiarly 

 square- browed, bull-necked appearance, recalling 

 the Blue Tit when seen full-face, an aspect that 

 causes something of a shock in one accustomed to 

 see it only in profile. These two Ringed Plovers 

 remained, resting perhaps, during the following day, 

 but on the third day they were gone, little recking of 

 the transformation that would take place in our little 

 marshland ere spring brought them north again. 



For the Fiend had already done with his bill- 

 hooking, and devised some diabolical means of 

 exhausting the ditches, into the muddy bottoms of 

 which he flung his crop of reeds and grasses that had 

 made such a brave show above, leaving the shorn 

 banks to bristle like a beggar's chin. He then took 

 to grubbing up the willow saplings which lined the 

 cross ditches, forming a screen for Snipe and Mallard 

 that hid therein. He had not gone far when 

 another Mallard exploded beneath him, and the 

 Fiend's head appeared through the willow screen 

 to watch a Moorhen cut along the raised edge of a 

 gutter and disappear from the face of the earth. He 

 lingered thoughtfully, and even after withdrawing, 

 reappeared to look first at the ground and then at 

 the sky, as if the sudden spiriting away of the 

 Moorhen weighed heavily on his mind. At last, he 

 gave it up and retired to his grubbing ; upon which 

 the little red neb peeping from the surface of the 

 water-filled trough at the end of the gutter became 

 a head ; then a neck followed, and finally the whole 

 body of the bird emerged as she started with 

 lowered head upon a long run, hugging the willows 



