THE FAERY YEAR 



lad unless he had irons swarmed up the lofty 

 trunk of the raven pine till he reached the few top 

 branches, I can hardly imagine ; once perched there, 

 and sure of head and nerve, he might crawl out near 

 the very end of the branch that held the nest with- 

 out fear of it giving, so tough and seasoned it 

 would be. 



At the Estuary 



At the close of November a gunner will take 

 wild-fowl or woodcock with the zest an angler takes 

 trout in April. A gunner went down to the harbour 

 the other morning before light to find a lake near 

 by, soon after sunrise, black with coot. The weather 

 watcher predicts an old-fashioned season for wild- 

 fowl. It is to bring widgeon, mallard, and pochard 

 to the harbour, marshes, and mudflats by the coast, 

 in something like the numbers that old shore 

 gunners knew. In the open sea, but within a stone- 

 throw, sometimes, of the beach, grebes have already 

 appeared the great crested grebe and the dabchicks ; 

 and, more often than we might suppose, that noble 

 bird, the great northern diver. 



In the dank, sad cottages about the estuary, the 

 fishermen are watchful for the foreign birds, as they 

 call the widgeon and other ducks. Hardly a single 

 bird, or a pair, much less a small flock, can come 

 among the brown flossy-headed reeds, where the 

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