80 Idylls of the Field. 



that droop upon his breast, the dark plume upon his 

 head, the yellow stains upon his cruel bill. 



No thought of danger ruffles his calm, cold heart, 

 or quickens by a single beat the movements of his 

 mighty wings. With slow, deliberate flight he sweeps 

 along, almost touching the water as he flies. 



He has reached the bend of the river. He is gone, 

 uttering, just before he vanished behind the green wall 

 of alders, a muttered croak, as if satisfied, on nearing 

 his favourite strip of sand, to find no brother angler 

 on the ground before him. 



A couple of lapwings, disturbed perhaps by his 

 approach, rise above the trees, and after circling idly 

 once or twice across the river, fly off towards their 

 haunt among the hills. 



Their work is over for the season. The young lap- 

 wings, who can run as soon as they are out of the 

 shell, and quickly learn to find a living for themselves, 

 return no more at night to the shelter of their mother's 

 wings. 



Here among the hills of Devon you may see little 

 of these active dwellers on the heath. But in the 

 heart of Mendip, perhaps, where the spaces are less 

 vast, you may chance on a little company not yet 

 scattered to the winds. 



It is a lonely spot. The great gorge has died away 

 on the edge of the moor. The King of Mendip, with 

 his crown of barrows, lifts broad shoulders far along 

 the sky-line. The slopes are brown and bare, save 



