46 The Birds of the 



identify it threw itself over a precipice and escaped 

 into a crack at the bottom. 



The wind was fair for the shore, and as the water 

 lapped our bows the Megstone Rocks settled down 

 fast, lower and lower, into the sea behind us. The 

 turrets and battlements of Bamborough Castle, which 

 seen on end recalls the Normandy St. Michael's 

 Mount, separated themselves one by one from the 

 block, and sooner than we could have wished, we 

 were landed safely a mile or so from the village on a 

 natural jetty of rock, at the end of which we had 

 watched the evening before an eider drake addressing, 

 with much gesticulation, a party of ducks. A few 

 hours later we were comfortably asleep, rushing 

 through the night to London. 



Of all the poor creatures whose fate it was to be 

 strangled or battered to death by Hercules, there 

 was only one who made a really good stand-up fight, 

 and at one time seemed to be fairly beating him. He 

 was Antaeus, the son of the Earth. 



Every time that he fell and touched his mother 

 we should say, " ran down to the country " he came 

 up again with fighting powers renewed. It was not 

 till Hercules found out his secret and held him up, 

 never letting him fall we should say, " stopped his 

 Saturdays till Mondays out of town " that he quite 

 broke him down. It is a myth in which the wisdom 

 of the ancients has written for our admonition, on 

 whom the ends of the world have come, the lesson 

 that the best cure for a tired head and irritable 

 nerves is the touch of Mother Nature to escape from 

 the rattle of cabs and omnibuses, and the everlasting 

 cry of " extra specials," and lose oneself, if only for a 

 day, among the wild creation. 



Nowhere in the languid days of early summer 



