60 BIRD BIOGRAPHIES 



what strikes you most is the utter lone- 

 liness and silence of the big moors all 

 around. You realize what this silence 

 is best when you are tucked away in a 

 shelter waiting for a bird to come to the 

 camera. I remember one day I was 

 waiting to photograph the Grey-lag Goose ; 

 there was no wind, and the silence was 

 intense. It would have been a relief to 

 have heard a bird's song, or the tramp- 

 ing of a horse on the distant road, but 

 all through that day hardly a sound 

 greeted me, except those strange noises 

 that one hears in those silent spots, 

 sounds that one cannot account for. At 

 intervals I heard a noise close to me 

 just like a single clap of the hands, and 

 other weird and unaccountable noises 

 one occasionally hears. In some parts 

 the natives put them down to " the little 

 folk" the fairies, and I have known 

 some that hardly like to talk about them, 

 for surely if there are ghosts on this 



