THE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 45 



to catch a sight of these was my principal delight. When 

 they found out this they never passed the door without 

 showing "the boy" what they had got. Many were the 

 questions I asked them about bird and fish, and I never 

 rested until the kind-hearted fisher-lads had taken me with 

 them to see for myself the birds they talked about. 



Before long I knew where to look for the birds, and 

 could mimic their cries the shriek of the curlew and his 

 mournful whistle, the Peewit (Vanellus cristatus) , and the 

 note of the Stone Curlew (Edicnemus crepitans), or thick- 

 knee (called in the marshes "the king of the curlews"). 

 I had plenty of room to move about, and no one interfered 

 with me or the birds. The Bird Preservation Act was not 

 thought of at that time. The plover's eggs were left for 

 the bird to hatch, and if the young were picked up just to 

 look at they would be gently put down again. Bird and 

 egg-collectors had not reached our neighbourhood then. 

 The miles of marshland teemed with bird-life. When the 

 gun was used it was for the wild fowl proper geese, duck, 

 wigeon, teal but the waders that gave life to the dreary- 

 looking pools were little troubled, for powder and shot 

 with the fishermen meant money. When they fired at a 

 bird they shot at something that would do for dinner. 



I had watched the life on the marshes at all hours of 

 day and night in the earjy morning, when the mist rolled 

 over the lands and the scattered poplars and stunted 

 willows took strange shapes, while the red hares flicked 

 the wet off their hind feet as they sat on the mole hillocks, 

 and at midday, when the gulls left the sea to come to the 

 hollow marsh pools to bathe and rest a pretty sight. 

 With them would be seen the peewits and Red-legged Sand- 

 pipers (Scolopax calidris). One would hear them, too 

 the cackle of the gulls, the "pewit, pewit," of the green 

 plover, and the scream of the redshank. In the evening 

 flight after flight of starlings made their way over the flats 

 to meet in one vast host to go through their drill before 

 settling for the night in the reeds. At one particular 

 hour of the afternoon, in summer between five and six 



