38 Idylls of the Field. 



Farther than that they cannot go : no tree can 

 shelter them; their feet have no power to grasp the 

 branches. They must fight it out, and face the blast, 

 however hard it blows. 



Life by the shore is at all times more variable than 

 among the fields and lanes. In the country there is 

 always a certain settled population, independently of 

 the migrants who come home to build their nests in 

 summer and the shivering fugitives who in winter are 

 driven from the frozen north. But there are parts of 

 the coast where in calm weather few birds are visible 

 at all during the hours of daylight. There are times 

 when you may wander by the sea with no birds in 

 sight, except a wandering gull that, far off upon the 

 waves, shows for a moment like the surf, or a cloud of 

 ducks that, in even line, fly low along the water far 

 from land. 



But when the sun is well down in the west, when 

 the dull mud-flats begin to take colour from the sky, 

 then the life of the shore seems suddenly to waken. 



A hundred yards in front of you, as you stroll along 

 the edge of the tide, a flock of sandpipers are scattered 

 on the wet sand. Now the swift wave flows about 

 their feet, then retires again, while the active little 

 birds run to and fro picking up the tiny morsels that 

 the tide has brought them. 



As you draw nearer, one of the little company with 

 plaintive cry takes wing, then another, and then all at 

 once the whole troop rise and fly straight out over the 



