SEPTEMBER IN BROADLAND. 97 



duck is protruding, has arrived before us. His costume betrays his avocation. He 

 is a game-keeper. Like most men who lead a lonely existence, he is reserved and 

 cautious, but like them, when once thawed into conversation, becomes communica- 

 tive enough. It is some minutes before we are on such good terms; we silently 

 watch the downfall together. Keassured by the quietude, the waterfowl venture 

 out again into the open, grebes and their striped progeny, and coots with a younger 

 generation nearly as large as themselves, and a whole family of moorhens paddle 

 out from the reed-clump, some to vanish in the one opposite, the remainder to dip 

 and play and fish until disturbed again by our unwelcome presence. 



' See them starlings ? ' our new friend queries, pointing to a huge flock com- 

 prising some hundreds wheeling and manoeuvring in a most well-timed and mar- 

 vellous fashion. ' Well, I'm goin' ter give them what cheer ! this evenin/ My 

 guv'ner ha' suffered enough from them a-settin' on the reeds or roostin', that he 

 says I must du some execution among 'em. Yow'd be astonished at the damage 

 they du a-breaking down big patches of 'em. Theer's at least a quarter of an acre 

 spiled a'ready in that patch in front of us. I doan't like wholesale slaughter, but 

 a feller is paid tu du his duty. Yow'll think it funny, but I like 'em for eatin' as 

 well as I du any bird as is a-flyin' ! I skin 'em, cut their hinder parts away, and 

 bake 'em in a pie. Some of them poor rogues '11 be in a pie to-morrer. That's 

 the one redeemin' feature in the business. 



'I git larfed at for some of my notions. I'm teetotal; that's somethin' new 

 hereabouts in a gamekeeper, not as I know many on 'em as are drunkards. I 

 doan't want ter become one, so, thinks I, pervention's better 'an a cure. My class, 

 yow know, tu, often get a downright love for killin' almost everything they come 

 across. They think they're doin' theer duty, and so they kill every mortal thing 

 as they imagine is likely tu du theer game birds a mischief either in the egg or 

 feather. Law, gentlemen, we've got credit for doin' the biggest mischief in the 

 way of wipin' out our rarer birds and with some degree of truth, I'll allow ye. 

 Lost British Birds * ha' put down that tu our credit. Theer's a book, you know, 

 of that name jest published. Well, I was a-readin' it and thinks I, Jack Manly 

 (that's me, yow know) ain't so bad, I guess, as some of his neighbours. No more 

 is his master. He is doin' his best tu presarve some of the species, and I aids an' 

 abets him, for, as I've thought these yeers past, what a pity it is that our native 

 races of birds should be wiped out as they are. Theer's so many causes a-workin' 

 against 'em. Drainage and cultiwation then them abominable Cockney sportsmen 

 as blaze away for killin' sake only, from sparrers up'ards, then specimen hunters, 



* ' Lost British Birds ' (1894), by W. H. Hudson, published by the Society for the Protection of Birds. N 



